When E. Marvin Neville left Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1980, it could have been called the most boring place on earth. Then, something happened: Indy started to grow way beyond the bounds of its Indy 500 image. It is now a vibrant, energetic metropolis, overwhelmed with events, entertainment, and tourist traps. But with change comes conflict. The murder rate in Indianapolis is sky-high. You cant turn a corner without running into a drug deal. Bad education system, bad parenting, bad economyyou name it; there is a bad side to Indy, and its this bad side Neville dives into with his edgy ten story collection, A Smoking, Deadly Summer in Indy. Nevilles Indianapolis exists only in shadow. Its that dark silhouette you see from the corner of your eye that disappears when you turn to look. Nevilles Indy is rife with the mysterious and sinful, told with an honest, sexy voice that lulls you into false safety. This Indy is filled with the supernatural, the evil, and the downright strange.

One hundred years ago, 40 cars lined up for the first Indianapolis 500. We are still waiting to find out who won. The Indy 500 was created to showcase the controversial new sport of automobile racing, which was sweeping the country. Daring young men were driving automobiles at the astonishing speed of 75 miles per hour, testing themselves and their vehicles. With no seat belts, hard helmets or roll bars, the dangers were enormous. When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909, seven people were killed, some of them spectators. Oil-slicked surfaces, clouds of smoke, exploding tires, and flying grit all made driving extremely hazardous, especially with the open-cockpit, windshield-less vehicles. Bookmakers offered bets not only on who might win but who might survive. But this book is about more than a race--it is the story of America at the dawn of the automobile age, a country in love with speed, danger, and spectacle.--From publisher description.

The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.