BOOK BRIEFS

Thriller

Charleston by John Jakes (Dutton, $26.95).

For a combination of American history and an entertaining story, it's hard to surpass John Jakes.

The Bell family history begins in Charles Town in the Carolina Colony in 1720. Our story begins in 1779 in Charleston. Edward Bell, studying in England, returns home to find his older brother, Adrian, has plans to marry Edward's sweetheart.

This is only the beginning of their antagonism toward each other as Adrian, such as many others, remains a Tory and Edward chooses to fight on the side of the revolutionaries.

The history of the Bell family and Charleston continues with the growth of slavery, the Civil War and the growing animosity of the two sides of the Bell family. It becomes hatred when Alexandra, granddaughter of Edward, sides with the anti-slavery cause and continues her crusade even after the Civil War has ended.

Jakes fills his story with the rich details and little snippets of history that keep the pages turning in this 500-page novel.

- John Harrington

Mysteries

"Wrongful Death" By Baine Kerr. Scribner, $25.

Elliott Stone, an attorney who was named temporary conservator for a man terribly injured in an accident, learns a few years later his actions may have contributed to even more dreadful injuries to the man's wife.

After two years prosecuting war crimes in the Balkans, Stone is determined to see the woman gets proper treatment and that her husband is brought to justice for causing injuries that put her in a coma. The hospital where she is a patient is a dreadful place, and after a few months, the woman dies.

The rest of the story involves Stone's investigation and courtroom action when the man is brought to trial. It seems to be an open-and-shut case, but is it? Stone recalls some lessons he learned about guilt and innocence during the war crimes trials.

This book is good with real surprises.

- Kay Dyer

"Precinct Puerto Rico" by Steven Torres. Thomas Dunne, $23.95.

Luis Gonzalo, sheriff of Angustias, is thrown into a crime much bigger than anything he's ever experienced in his small community on Puerto Rico.

While visiting relatives, he goes to the beach with his sister-in-law to help in the rescue of illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic after their ship crashes on the beach. One of the victims has injuries that indicate murder.

He later discovers officers who took over the rescue operation removed the murder victim's body illegally. When he continues investigating, the bad cops decide to get him to back off by attacking him through people in his hometown.

Gonzalo may be a smalltown cop with little experience, but with the help of others, he proves he's not a dumb cop.

- Kay Dyer

New member

Cherri Loper Dohlen of Oslo, Norway, has become the second foreign member of the Oklahoma Writers' Federation. Born in Durant, Dohlen wrote 120 radio dramas while working in Ethiopia. She wrote "Portrait of Isben," a three-act play published in the United States, and had a successful run in Oslo.

Several of her short stories and a musical were published in Norway. She is writing cultural and technical articles for The Norseman, an international magazine. She also is editor of The Denizen, an English language newspaper in Europe. Dohlen and her husband, Kurt, divide their time between Norway, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma.

For more information about the Oklahoma Writers Federation, e-mail www.owfi.net or call publicity director Ron Maier at 277-9224.

Signings BEST OF BOOKS, 1313 NE Danforth, Edmond

William Bernhardt will autograph his new book, "Criminal Intent," 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday.

Gov. Frank Keating and illustrator Mike Wimmer will sign copies of "Will Rogers: An American Legend," their new children's book, 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.

FULL CIRCLE BOOKS, 50 Penn Place

Chaz Allen will sign "101 Little Known Facts," a compilation of the scripts used on his daily radio show with Dale Robertson, from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday .

William Bernhardt will speak and sign "Criminal Intent" at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

WALDENBOOKS, Crossroads Mall

William Bernhardt will speak and sign "Criminal Intent" at 2 p.m. Saturday.

BRACE BOOKS, 2205 N 14th, Ponca City

William Bernhardt will speak and sign "Criminal Intent" at 2 p.m. Sept. 22.

BORDERS BOOKS, 3209 Northwest Expressway

David Fitzgerald will autograph "Cherokee" at 7 p.m. Friday.

BARNES & NOBLE, 6100 N May

Sherri Goodall will give a bridal tea and signing for her new book, "Wedding Details FAQs," at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Archive ID: 1045865
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2002/09/15/book-briefs/62079622007/
www.oklahoman.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-21
145204
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:DXBGYTSRLHMISTTSLP3I37RBW2UA6BE7
<urn:uuid:af273329-2dbc-40db-8e0f-e758b0ec3e90>
2022-05-21T07:13:05Z
146.75.38.62
text/html
sha1:LAYEJAVUPBYAISFTXB4ZVNT64T3BVO6Z
<urn:uuid:ad4afe37-0974-409d-b6e0-9284053f3c84>
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2002/09/15/book-briefs/62079622007/
response
<urn:uuid:eeb13c9b-a692-4da7-87e5-ec16f0ba41d9>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-21
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for May 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-253
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.3-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/