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Dangerously Funny
The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"
By David Bianculli
Touchstone, December 2009
Hardcover, 400 pages
ISBN-10: 1439101167
ISBN-13: 9781439101162
A behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- the provocative, politically charged program that shocked the censors, outraged the White House, and forever changed the face of television.
Decades before The Daily Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour proved there was a place on television for no-holds-barred political comedy with a decidedly antiauthoritarian point of view. In this explosive, revealing history of the show, veteran entertainment journalist David Bianculli tells the fascinating story of its three-year network run -- and the cultural impact that's still being felt today.
Before it was suddenly removed from the CBS lineup (reportedly under pressure from the Nixon administration), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was a ratings powerhouse. It helped launch the careers of comedy legends such as Steve Martin and Rob Reiner, featured groundbreaking musical acts like the Beatles and the Who, and served as a cultural touchstone for the antiwar movement of the late 1960s.
Drawing on extensive original interviews with Tom and Dick Smothers and dozens of other key players -- as well as more than a decade's worth of original research -- Dangerously Funny brings readers behind the scenes for all the battles over censorship, mind-blowing musical performances, and unforgettable sketches that defined the show and its era.
David Bianculli delves deep into this riveting story, to find out what really happened and to reveal why this show remains so significant to this day.
Simon Pulse, December 2009
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1416978356
ISBN-13: 9781416978350
Ages: 12 and up
Grades: 7 and up
Who doesn't want to be a cover girl?
London Abrams's fi rst love is volleyball, so why does she enter an online modeling competition? Answer: superhottie Brent St. John. London spots Brent signing in contestants at a store, and she gets in line simply to say hi. But she never dreams she'll make it into the competition!
London's now up against fourteen hungry fashionistas willing to do whatever it takes to win. All she wants to win is Brent's heart...but the money prize couldn't hurt. If London plays this right, she can win the contest, the boy, and the cash. GAME ON!
Sept. 09
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Bounce Back
Overcoming Setbacks to Succeed in Business and in Life
Job loss. Foreclosure. Relationship woes. Health issues. Dire financial straits. If recent history has taught us anything, it's that nobody goes through life unscathed -- no matter how rich, how smart, how talented, or how fortunate they may be. White collar, blue collar, or no collar, there is an undeniable commonality to the raw emotion that strikes people when they are knocked down.
University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari has seen the bottom - from two very distinct and very public setbacks -- but he has learned that bad situations are only permanent if you allow them to be. Fired from his job as head coach 20 games into his third season with the NBA's New Jersey Nets in 1999, Calipari was publicly humiliated and emotionally devastated. But Calipari never allowed the negative to overcome him or those around him, and he began plotting a course for his first bounce back. It was a journey that took him to the University of Memphis and, in 2008, to the NCAA's marquee event, the men's basketball Final Four.
When that trip culminated in a crushing, overtime defeat in the title game, Calipari began to bounce back again -- this time armed with the knowledge and fortitude he gained in overcoming the Nets' firing. One year after that defeat, from where he watched his team lose a nine-point lead with two minutes and twelve seconds left in regulation, Calipari was tabbed as the head coach of college basketball's all-time winningest program, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. In ten years, he went from his lowest low to landing his dream job at a dream program.
What Coach Cal -- as players, peers, and fans affectionately call him -- learned from his experiences was the importance of having the right attitude when dealing with life's major impediments: with every hard knock comes an occasion to reevaluate and reinvent. Now Coach Cal asks that you join his team of Bounce Backers and allow him the privilege of coaching you through what may, at times, seem to be an insurmountable challenge. With a combination of tough love and understanding, Coach Cal takes you under his wing in much the same fashion he guides the young men who play for him. By becoming an active participant in your own resurrection -- through practice exercises and tips from Coach Cal and his deep bench of highly successful people who have survived their own bounce backs -- you too will gain the tools and insight to understand that it's never a matter of how far you have fallen, but instead it's about how high you bounce back.
Simon Pulse, September 2009
Hardcover, 544 pages
ISBN-10: 1416978933
ISBN-13: 9781416978930
Ages: 12 and up
Grades: 7 and up
When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. It only makes things worse that everyone now treats Abbey like either a freak show or a charity case. Thank goodness for Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen's funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey's life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he's the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again...but also special.
Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen's betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth that nearly unravels her -- one that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.
Never Make the Same Mistake Twice
Lessons on Love and Life Learned the Hard Way
Nene Leakes
Touchstone, August 2009
Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1439167303
ISBN-13: 9781439167304
Outrageous, captivating, and unafraid to tell it like it is, Nene Leakes shares her wild journey from a scandalous past to the pinnacle of reality television stardom. Lauded by her fans for her refreshing honesty, infectiously genuine style, and clever sense of humor, Nene is an empowered, self-made woman who has not forgotten where she came from and knows exactly where she wants to go.
In this straight-talking and provocative memoir Nene charts her journey from family black sheep to single mother to making good and realizing her dreams. With her charm and bold, self-possessed voice, Nene tackles her painful childhood; the abuse she suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend; her struggle to support her firstborn son; and her path to true love, self-acceptance, and pride.
In Never Make the Same Mistake Twice, Nene dishes on her cast mates; takes on the rumors about her past; and shares hard-earned and inspiring life lessons in her fierce, no-nonsense, and irreverent style.
Thirst No. 1
The Last Vampire, Black Blood, Red Dice
By Christopher Pike
Simon Pulse, August 2009
Trade Paperback, 624 pages
ISBN-10: 1416983082
ISBN-13: 9781416983088
As to blood --
ah, blood, the whole subject fascinates me.
I do like that as well, warm and dripping,
when I am thirsty.
And I am often thirsty....
Alisa has been in control of her urges for the five thousand years she has been a vampire. She feeds but does not kill, and she lives her life on the fringe to maintain her secret. But when her creator returns to hunt her, she must break her own rules in order to survive.
Her quest leads her to Ray. He is the only person who can help her; he also has every reason to fear her. Alisa must get closer to him to ensure her immortality. But as she begins to fall in love with Ray, suddenly there is more at stake than her own life....
Growing up a privileged Manhattan kid, Jeff Nichols should have had it all. Instead, he got a plethora of impairments: learning disabilities, a speech impediment, dyslexia, ADD, and a mild case of Tourette's syndrome.
In Trainwreck, his weird and witty memoir of utter dysfunction, Nichols gives an irreverent look at how one "idoit" made good. Bounced from elite private schools, he limps through college, earning the nickname "Iron Lung" for his uncanny ability to inhale from a four-foot bong without coughing. By the skin of his teeth, he graduates and lands a job on Wall Street...as a moving target for coked-up traders tossing order cards at his head. Bumming money from his parents to pay for drugs and prostitutes, Nichols hits bottom before he discovers Alcoholics Anonymous, the perfect place to develop material for his new career in stand-up. Several disastrous twists and turns later, he finally makes good when a crazy stroke of luck leads to his story being turned into a feature film by the same production company behind indie hits like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Savages.
Hilarious and oddly inspiring, Trainwreck is proof that a life disastrously lived can still turn out beyond anybody's wildest imaginings.
Touchstone, July 2009
Hardcover, 496 pages
ISBN-10: 1416588329
ISBN-13: 9781416588320
Anna Travis is back in a new gripping mystery from Lynda La Plante, featuring the female detective every bit as intelligent, ambitious, and flawed as Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison.
Ruthless drug trafficker Alexander Fitzpatrick is one of the most wanted men in the Western Hemisphere. But for ten years, there's been no sign of him. Is he dead, or just trying to appear that way? When an ex-colleague from the murder squad is found shot in a dank drug den, Anna Travis is pulled into the case. She's grateful for the distraction after her breakup with DCI Langton and soon finds herself involved with someone new. But as the bodies pile up and the mystery deepens, Travis and Langton must put aside their personal history and work together to track down one of the canniest criminals they've ever encountered.
Atria, June 2009
Hardcover, 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1416569545
ISBN-13: 9781416569541
Includes a Bonus MP3 CD of John Connolly's Every Dead Thing!
Charlie Parker is a lost soul. Deprived of his private investigator's license and under scrutiny by the police, Parker takes a job in a Portland bar. But he uses his enforced retirement to begin a different kind of investigation: an examination of his own past and an inquiry into the death of his father, who took his own life after apparently shooting dead two unarmed teenagers. It's a search that will eventually lead Parker to question all that he believed about his beloved parents, and about himself.
But there are other forces at work: a troubled young woman who is running from an unseen threat, one that has already taken the life of her boyfriend; and a journalist-turned-writer named Mickey Wallace, who is conducting an investigation of his own. And haunting the shadows, as they have done throughout Parker's life, are two figures: a man and a woman who seem driven to bring an end to Charlie Parker's existence.
Haunting, lyrical, and impossible to put down, The Lovers is John Connolly at his best.
IF YOU WANT
to change a life ruled by fear into one lived to the fullest and led by positive emotions... YOU MUST DARE
to harness fear as a motivator, rather than letting it debilitate you. WHO DARES WINS
is bestselling author and former Green Beret officer Bob Mayer's surefire strategy for conquering fear and achieving personal and professional success -- by mastering the time-tested techniques of America's elite warriors: the Special Forces.
With his unique blend of practical Special Ops tactics and an artist's vision, Mayer outlines specific steps that help you to
· define your goals
· stay motivated
· build mental toughness
· dare to succeed
· find courage
· profile your true nature
· take risks
· communicate effectively
· become a leader
...and much more.
Anyone can be ordinary. Dare to be elite, with the success secrets of those select warriors who are trained to conquer fear, who dare to be different, and who accomplish what others consider impossible.
Press Pause Before You Eat
Say Good-bye to Mindless Eating and Hello to the Joys of Eating
By Linda Mintle
Howard Books, May 2009
Trade Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1439148643
ISBN-13: 9781439148648
For all the times you've said, "Why did I just eat that?"
Say good-bye to one of the most overlooked areas of our relationship to food -- mindless eating. This groundbreaking book shines new light on why we eat along with practical, proven strategies to control our eating.
Does your busy schedule translate into eating on the run or skipping meals altogether? Is your life so filled with multitasking and on-the-go consumption that eating becomes a thing to do while doing other things? Dr. Linda knows that all too often such eating becomes a source of guilt and distress.
The more stressed we feel, the more food becomes a source of gratification and relief -- a numbing agent. Dieting treats only symptoms. "Unless people are coached to be intentional about their eating, they will continue to eat mindlessly and be part of the 90 to 95 percent of failed dieters," writes Dr. Linda. "A new approach is needed -- one that addresses the emotional, relational, and spiritual side of our relationship to food."
Food is not your enemy; it is something you can once again enjoy! Dr. Linda deals with the root causes of unintentional eating and restores your joy of eating. This is your practical guide to cultivating a healthy awareness of eating that attends to your body, soul, and spirit.
Twilight of Avalon, Book One
A Novel of Trystan & Isolde
By Anna Elliott
Touchstone, May 2009
Trade Paperback, 448 pages
ISBN-10: 1416589899
ISBN-13: 9781416589891
Book One in the Twilight of Avalon Trilogy
She is a healer, a storyteller, a warrior, and a queen without a throne. In the shadow of King Arthur's Britain, one woman knows the truth that could save a kingdom from the hands of a tyrant...
Ancient grudges, old wounds, and the quest for power rule in the newly widowed Queen Isolde's court. Hardly a generation after the downfall of Camelot, Isolde grieves for her slain husband, King Constantine, a man she secretly knows to have been murdered by the scheming Lord Marche -- the man who has just assumed his title as High King. Though her skills as a healer are renowned throughout the kingdom, in the wake of Con's death, accusations of witchcraft and sorcery threaten her freedom and her ability to bring Marche to justice. Burdened by their suspicion and her own grief, Isolde must conquer the court's distrust and superstition to protect her throne and the future of Britain.
One of her few allies is Trystan, a prisoner with a lonely and troubled past. Neither Saxon nor Briton, he is unmoved by the political scheming, rumors, and accusations swirling around the fair queen. Together they escape, and as their companionship turns from friendship to love, they must find a way to prove what they know to be true -- that Marche's deceptions threaten not only their lives but the sovereignty of the British kingdom.
In Twilight of Avalon, Anna Elliott returns to the roots of the legend of Trystan and Isolde to shape a very different story -- one based in the earliest written versions of the Arthurian tales -- a captivating epic brimming with historic authenticity, sweeping romance, and the powerful magic of legend.
If life were a fairy tale, Oribella Bettencourt would have a "happily ever after" kind of future ahead of her. A Hollywood producer has come to Des Moines in search of a perfectly modern Princess Rapunzel, and Ori -- a model, dancer, and star of the beauty pageant circuit -- lands the part. And why shouldn't she? With her hardworking, self-sacrificing mother guiding her career, Ori is stunning, dedicated, poised...and then there's her hair. Breathtakingly lustrous blond hair that sets her apart from all the other girls at school. So what if she doesn't have any friends her age, or anyone to talk to other than her mother? She's on the verge of having everything she's ever dreamed of.
But in this fairy tale, the beautiful princess wakes up to her worst nightmare -- when almost overnight, Ori begins to lose her hair....
Second Spring
Dr. Mao's Hundreds of Natural Secrets for Women to Revitalize and Regenerate at Any Age
By Dr. Maoshing Ni
Free Press, April 2009
Trade Paperback, 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1416599355
ISBN-13: 9781416599357
THE CHINESE REFER TO A WOMAN'S MIDLIFE transition as her Second Spring. Thanks to the simple, natural techniques of traditional Chinese medicine, the second half of a woman's life is a flowering of feminine potential rather than a physical and mental decline. Now, Dr. Mao's revolutionary Second Spring™ program gives you time-tested, completely natural treatments to enhance energy, sexuality, and health -- and initiate your own new season of vitality starting at age thirty-five, through premenopause, menopause, and beyond.
Dr. Mao -- Yahoo!'s favorite natural health expert and author of the bestselling Secrets of Longevity -- offers proven natural solutions such as a surgery-free face-lift, Chinese herbs that fight memory loss, traditional remedies that improve libido and sex, and foods that keep your specific body type in peak form (they're not the same for everyone!). His safe, natural practices, outlined in more than 200 tips, can eliminate the need for expensive medicines and artificial hormones.
This amazing compendium of traditional wisdom is also enjoyable to read. With chapters on topics like weight, energy, brain power, beauty, and sexual health, Second Spring allows you to target your concerns right away. At the end you'll find handy, at-a-glance lists addressing women's most common ailments.
Second Spring, inspired by Dr. Mao's own mother's remarkable transformation in the second half of her life, offers an integratedlifestyle program that will help you live long, live strong, and live happy in ways that you never thought possible.
Does it seem like everything is moving so fast these days you can barely keep up? Do you sometimes feel that your life is spinning out of control? Most of us are so overwhelmed by the stuff in our daily lives -- work, bills, family commitments, demands from our kids' schools -- that we rush from person to person and place to place. For many of us, life feels completely out of balance because we give one area of our lives too much attention and the other areas nowhere near enough. This crazy imbalance and the resulting stress and unhappiness you feel are the clutter that Peter Walsh wants to help you tackle in Enough Already!: Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You.
Peter examines the six key areas of your life -- Family, Relationships, Work, Health, Money, and Spirituality -- and shows how these unique parts of your life are so interrelated that if just one is cluttered, that clutter will creep into the other areas and throw your life off balance. He then offers a step-by-step plan that helps you acknowledge and address the emotional and mental clutter that holds you back from living the richly fulfilling life you deserve.
Peter knows that freeing up a cluttered life (and mind) can sometimes take even greater work and commitment than clearing out a cluttered home, but he is determined to help you change. With his wry humor, his constant encouragement, and the specific tips and practical advice he offers, Peter helps you prioritize what matters in your life. Then his straightforward approach shows you how to let go of the stress and clutter and regain your balance, focus, energy, and purpose. By following his simple plan you will begin to view your life and how you spend your time and energy in a completely new way. You will finally be able to live a stress-free life of balance and fulfillment -- the life that's been buried under all your emotional clutter for years and the one you've always imagined.
By Robert Rotenberg
Touchstone, March 2009
Hardcover, 384 pages
ISBN-10: 1416592857
ISBN-13: 9781416592853
Kevin Brace, Canada's most famous radio personality, stands in the door of his luxury condo-minium, hands covered in blood, and announces to his newspaper delivery man: "I killed her." His wife lies dead in the bathtub, fatally stabbed.
It would appear to be an open-and-shut case.
The trouble is, Brace refuses to talk to anyone -- including his own lawyer -- after muttering those incriminating words. With the discovery that the victim was actually a self-destructive alcoholic, the appearance of strange fingerprints at the crime scene, and a revealing courtroom cross-examination, the seemingly simple case takes on all the complexities of a hotly contested murder trial. Meantime, much to everyone's surprise, the Leafs are making an unlikely run for the Stanley Cup.
In the tradition of defence lawyers turned authors like Scott Turow and John Grisham, Robert Rotenberg delivers a legal thriller rich with his forensic skill and insider knowledge, taking readers on a tour of Toronto from the Don Jail to the towers of Bay Street and into the shadowy corridors of the Old City Hall courthouse.
Elmore Leonard has Florida; John Lescroart, San Francisco; Robert Parker, Boston; Scott Turow, Chicago; and now, with Old City Hall, Rotenberg offers us a page-turning legal thriller set in a diverse and surprising Toronto and filled with unexpected characters and plot twists that keep you guessing until the very end.
February 09
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Simon & Schuster, February 2009
Hardcover, 544 pages
ISBN-10: 1416552286
ISBN-13: 9781416552284
In a masterful narrative, historian and biographer Charles Bracelen Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the last campaigns of the Civil War, was reelected as president, and laid out his majestic vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West.
In 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History, the reader is plunged into the heart of that crucial year as Lincoln faced enormous challenges. The Civil War was far from being won: as the year began, Lincoln had yet to appoint Ulysses S. Grant as the general-in-chief who would finally implement the bloody strategy and dramatic campaigns that would bring victory.
At the same time, with the North sick of the war, Lincoln was facing a reelection battle in which hundreds of thousands of "Peace Democrats" were ready to start negotiations that could leave the Confederacy as a separate American nation, free to continue the practice of slavery. In his personal life, he had to deal with the erratic behavior of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and both Lincolns were haunted by the sudden death, two years before, of their beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie.
1864 is the story of Lincoln's struggle with all this -- the war on the battlefields and a political scene in which his own secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, was working against him in an effort to become the Republican candidate himself. The North was shocked by such events as Grant's attack at Cold Harbor, during which seven thousand Union soldiers were killed in twenty minutes, and the Battle of the Crater, where three thousand Union men died in a bungled attempt to blow up Confederate trenches. The year became so bleak that on August 23, Lincoln wrote in a memorandum, "This morning, as for several days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected." But, with the increasing success of his generals, and a majority of the American public ready to place its faith in him, Lincoln and the nation ended 1864 with the close of the war in sight and slavery on the verge of extinction.
1864 presents the man who not only saved the nation, but also, despite the turmoil of the war and political infighting, set the stage for westward expansion through the Homestead Act, the railroads, and the Act to Encourage Immigration.
As 1864 ends and Lincoln, reelected, is planning to heal the nation, John Wilkes Booth, whose stalking of Lincoln through 1864 is one of this book's suspenseful subplots, is a few weeks away from killing him.
By Kitty Sewell
Touchstone, February 2009
Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1416585141
ISBN-13: 9781416585145
Haunted by black magic, ruthless human traffickers, and her own personal demons, a psychotherapist must cross a deadly line in order to save her new patient in this searing novel of psychological suspense.
Madeleine Frank knows all too well that it's impossible to recover from some losses. She herself has escaped devastating heartbreak, fleeing her native Key West to begin life anew in the ancient city of Bath. But Madeleine's demons have never left her and may, in fact, be closer than ever -- in the mad visions of her mother, formerly a priestess of Santeria, the mysterious Afro-Cuban religion.
Rachel Locklear appears in her office seeking therapy, but Madeleine becomes increasingly troubled by the history of this hostile, damaged young woman. As the relationship with her new patient deepens, Madeleine discovers that Rachel's childhood eerily echoes her own darkest secret. Reluctant to act unprofessionally and risk having Rachel walk out of her life forever, Madeleine keeps her suspicions to herself.
But Madeleine is unaware of sinister forces gathering strength in her patient's life. On the run from her ruthless partner -- a man who will stop at nothing to control her and her son -- Rachel is desperate to keep her child safe from his father's dangerous "associates." Finally she has no choice but to involve the only person she can trust in a murderous web of revenge and deception.
From the tropical lushness of Key West to the imposing Georgian streets of Bath two women and their painful pasts collide dangerously with Cuban sorcery, prostitution, and coldhearted murder -- culminating in a tale as terrifying as it is compelling.
It is 1887, and Henry Ward Beecher lies dying. Reporters from around the world, eager for one last story about the most lurid scandal of their time, descend on Brooklyn Heights, their presence signaling the beginning of the voracious appetite for fallen celebrities we know so well today.
When Henry Ward Beecher was put on trial for adultery in 1875, the question of his guilt or innocence was ferociously debated. His trial not only split the country, it split apart his family, causing a particularly bitter rift between his sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Isabella Beecher Hooker, an ardent suffragist. Harriet remained loyal to Henry, while Isabella called publicly for him to admit his guilt. What had been a loving, close relationship between two sisters plummeted into bitter blame and hurt.
Harriet and Isabella each had a major role in the social revolutions unfolding around them, but what happened in their hearts when they were forced to face a question of justice much closer to home? Now they struggle: who best served Henry -- the one who was steadfast or the one who demanded honesty?
The Threat Closer to Home
Hugo Chavez and the War Against America
By Douglas Schoen and Michael Rowan
Free Press, January 2009
Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1-4165-9477-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9477-2
A chilling account of Hugo Chávez's shadow war on the United States
The American government has shrugged off South American politics for nearly forty years. In the meantime, our neighbor to the south has grown into an unprecedented threat. Hugo Chávez, the current president of Venezuela and a self-proclaimed enemy of the United States, commands what even Osama bin Laden only dreams of -- but few Americans see him as a true danger to this country. This book argues that we should.
Chávez has the means and the motivation to harm the United States in a way that few other countries can, and he has declared an "asymmetric war" against America. He runs a sovereign nation that is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. He enjoys annual windfall oil profits that equal the net worth of Bill Gates. He has more modern weapons than anyone in Latin America. He has strategic alliances with Iran, North Korea, and other enemies of America, yet he has duped many Americans -- from influential political and cultural leaders to ordinary citizens who benefit from his oil largess through his state-owned oil company -- into believing that he is a friend.
Drawing on two decades of experience working at the highest level of Venezuelan and American politics, Schoen and Rowan go behind the scenes to examine Chávez's efforts to subvert both the American economy and his own country's stability. Not only did he help drive the price of oil from ten dollars a barrel to more than a hundred dollars a barrel, he's sponsored and become increasingly involved in civilian massacres, drug running, money laundering, nuclear weapons proliferation, and terrorist training.
Schoen and Rowan have both the insight and the access to make a case not yet made in the American media. Over the course of the past decade while living and working in Venezuela as writers and political consultants, they've investigated Chávez's past, explored his family connections, and gone up against him in a series of elections. Their startling revelations about Chávez's rise to power and his reach into American politics make this the kind of urgent, newsbreaking narrative that will spark vital debate in the corridors of power.
