The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Thomas Keneally)

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

Thomas Keneally

Blurb: When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman the backlash from both Jimmie's tribe and white society initiates a series of dramatic events. As Jimmie tries to survive between two cultures, tensions reach a head when the Newbys, Jimmie's white employers, try to break up his marriage. The Newby women are murdered and Jimmie flees, pursued by police and vigilantes. The hunt intensifies as further murders are committed, and concludes with tragic results. 

Thomas Keneally's fictionalised account of the 19th century Aboriginal, Jimmy Governor, is a powerful story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.

ISBN: 0207197164 (Paperback)

Year: 1972

Publisher: A&R Classics

Pages: 178 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page

2. IMDB page for the film adaption

3. Synopsis of the book

4. Education resource for the book

5. Buy from Amazon

Nightlife (Thomas Perry)

Nightlife 

Thomas Perry

Blurb: Perry's new thriller takes us on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that pits two women against each other: one a beautiful, highly manipulative serial killer, the other the detective who is determined to stop her.

This murderer changes her appearance and identity with every kill, moving from Portland to San Francisco, to LA, to Las Vegas, with Catherine Hobbs, Portland homicide detective, always just one step behind. Catherine must use everything she has as a woman as well as a detective to stop her. She must learn how to read the murderer's mind. And she is up against a killer who turns to stalking her.

Delving deep inside the female psyche, reinterpreting conventions and confounding expectations, this is Perry at his critically acclaimed best.

ISBN: 9781847241153 (Paperback)

Year: 2006

Publisher: Quercus

Pages: 489 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Review of the book

3. Publisher's page for the book

4. Goodreads page for the book

5. Wikipedia page for the author

The Missing (Thomas Eidson)

The Missing

Thomas Eidson

Blurb: The year is 1886 and old Sammuel Jones - broken in body and soul - has ridden hard to reach his daughter's remote New Mexico ranch. Ridden hard so that he can die there.

But Maggie Baldwin, grown and with children of her own, wants nothing to do with this old man who abandoned her and her mother thirty years before.

Nothing, that is, until renegades shoot Maggie's husband kidnap her oldest girl. Then she has no choice but to ride with this dying father she detests in a desperate attempt to rescue her child before the girl disappears forever in the vast twilight land of old Mexico. 

ISBN: 0007181736 (Paperback)

Year: 1995

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 299 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the author

2. Wikipedia page for the book

3. Buy from Amazon

4. Goodreads page for the book

5. 10 questions with the author

The Avengers: The Avengers Assemble (Thomas Macri)

The Avengers: The Avengers Assemble 

Thomas Macri

Blurb: Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D are faced with a foe and no single person can defeat. So Fury sets out to bring together Earth's Mightiest Heroes and form the Avengers! Join Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye as they battle the Asgardian Trickster known as Loki. Loki plans to unleash a dangerous and powerful force upon the Earth. If he succeeds, the world as we know it will change forever - for the worse. Can the Avengers work together and rescue mankind from this vile villain's cruel grip? Or will Loki disassemble this new team and become ruler of Earth?

ISBN: 9781742833699 (Paperback)

Year: 2012

Publisher: Marvel

Pages: 167 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Google books page

3. Wikipedia page for The Avengers

4. Trailer for the film the book is based on

5. Parody site of the Avengers

Odd Thomas (Dean Koontz)

Odd Thomas

Dean Koontz

Blurb: He's Odd. Odd Thomas, to be precise. Genius fry-cook at the Pico Mundo Grill; boyfriend to the gorgeous Stormy Llewellyn - and possibly the only person with a chance of stopping one of the worst crimes in the bloody history of murder...

Something evil has come to the desert town that Odd and Stormy call home. It comes in the form of a mysterious man with a macabre appetite, a filing cabinet full of information on the world's worst killers, and strange, hyena-like shadows following him wherever he goes. Odd is worried. He knows things, see things - about the living, the dead and the soon to be dead. Things that he has to act on. Now he's terrified for Stormy, himself and Pico Mundo. Because he knows that on Wednesday August 15, a savage, blood-soaked whirlwind of violence and murder will devastate the town.

Today is August 14.

And Odd is far from sure he can stop the coming storm...

ISBN: 9780007849130 (Paperback)

Year: 2004

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Pages: 420 (Fiction)

Links

1. Official Page for the Series

2. Wikipedia page for the book

3. Buy from Amazon

4. Good reads page for the book

5. Study guide for the book

Searching for Schindler (Tom Keneally)

Searching for Schindler

Tom Keneally

Blurb: A memoir of Tom's journey around the world to discover the complete story of Oskar Schindler and those on his now-famous list.

In 1980, Tom Keneally walked into a store in Beverly Hills owned by Polish Jew Leopold Pfefferberg Page to buy a new briefcase. For the next few years, Tom's life was taken over by this charismatic and driven man, known as Poldek, and the story of his saviour, the ambiguous hero Oskar Schindler.

Inspired by Poldek's vision, Tom's 1982 novel, Schindler's Ark, won the Booker Prize and ultimately became the Oscar-award-winning film Schindler's List.

Tom and Poldek travelled across the US, Germany, Israel, Austria and Poland, interviewing survivors and discovering their extraordinary stories. Searching for Schindler is very much Tom's journey; he reflects on his early days as a successful but less than confident writer, and how this book, the film it became and the people he met, changed his and his family's lives forever.

Filled with stories of Poldek, Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and many other fascinating characters, Searching for Schindler gives us a unique insight into the wonderful, warm, thinking, compassionate and very funny man that is Tom Keneally.

ISBN: 9781741666151 (Paperback)

Year: 2007

Publisher: Vintage Books

Pages: 304 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Review from The Independent

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Google books page

4. Author's Wikipedia page

5. Review from The Times

Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Thomas Keneally)

Abraham Lincoln: A Life

Thomas Keneally

Blurb: A master storyteller reveals Lincoln as he truly lived. Author of the award-winning novel that inspired the film Schindler's List and acclaimed for his recent Civil War biography, American Scoundrel, Thomas Keneally delves with relish - and a keen, fresh eye - into Abraham Lincoln's complicated persona. Abraham Lincoln depicts all the amazing man's triumphs, insecurities, and crushing defeats with the uncanny insight: his early poverty and the ambition that propelled him out of it; shaping of the man and his political philosophy by youthful exposure to Christianity, slavery, and business; his tempestuous marriage and his fatherly love. Abraham Lincoln is an incisive study of a turning point in our history and a revealing portrait of its pivotal figure, his greatness etched even more clearly in this very touching human story.

ISBN: 9780143114758 (Paperback)

Year: 2003

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 183 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy the ebook

2. Blog review

3. Blogcritics review

4. Google books page

5. White House page on Abe