A child fantasizes about what she would serve various friends, relatives, and acquaintances at a tea party.

A Thoroughly Southern Mystery #9 MacLaren Yarbrough, county magistrate, business owner, wife, mother, and amateur sleuth is surprised when she finds an invitation to the elite Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club addressed to her. She is even more surprised when at her first meeting club president, Willena Kenan, is found brutally murdered on the bathroom floor during a coffee break. With everyone out of the room at the time, every club member is under suspicion, especially when police find a mysterious trench coat full of incriminating evidence. MacLaren will put her sleuthing to the test in this cozy southern mystery. “Patricia Sprinkle is a modern master of the classic cozy mystery.” --Nancy Pickard “As Southern as Sunday fried chicken and sweet tea... Come for one visit and you’ll always return.” –Carolyn Hart “Sprinkle has a gift for developing a full, rich world.” —Publisher’s Weekly “Sprinkle entertains and enchants her readers. Her characters are so real you’ll find yourself believing you grew up with them.” —Christian Retailing "Sprinkle has a real eye for regional culture and traditions. . . . She tackles weighty subject matter with a steady hand and a reassuring touch.”—Atlanta Journal Constitution "Sprinkle’s characters are fantastic, her Southern settings shine, and her stories always mesmerize.” —Roundtable Reviews

"With lively prose and sensitivity to context, this book offers a sweeping, authoritative history of the Obama presidency, focusing particularly on its impact and meaning vis-áa-vis African Americans. This interpretative account captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while at the same time rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief executive, thus making conceivable the ascent of his most unlikely of successors"--

Documents the cultural revolution behind the making of 1967's five Best Picture-nominated films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde, in an account that discusses how the movies reflected period beliefs about race, violence, and identity. 40,000 first printing.

An American spy heads to Tokyo to meet a Soviet defector, but things go very wrong in this tale of espionage, mystery, and murder . . . Fred Wilkinson waits in a Tokyo alley, wishing he were James Bond. Paunchy, in his 50s, and oh-so-tired, Wilkinson has nothing in common with that world-famous man of mystery—except that they are both spies. He’s already near the end of his career when he goes to Japan to meet with the Soviet defector Krylov, and some of his colleagues back in Washington think he’s getting soft. They’re right. Wilkinson never sees the killer coming. Three quick jabs to the kidneys, and the American spy is done for good. There to pick up the pieces is Peter Brook, a rising star in American intelligence. Brook doesn’t give a damn how his martinis are prepared, but he’s an expert at the fine art of staying alive. It’s up to him to bring in the defector—unless the defector comes after him.

The first major Katharine Hepburn biography independent of her control reveals the smart, complicated, and sophisticated woman behind the image Onscreen she played society girls, Spencer Tracy's sidekick, lionesses in winter. But the best character Katharine Hepburn ever created was Katharine Hepburn: a Connecticut Yankee, outspoken and elegant, she wore pants whatever the occasion and bristled at Hollywood glitter. So captivating was her image that she never seemed less than authentic. But how well did we know her, really? Was there a woman behind the image who was more human, more driven, and ultimately more triumphant because of her vulnerability? William J. Mann--a cultural historian and journalist, a sympathetic admirer but no mere fan--has fashioned an intimate, often revisionist, and truly unique close-up that challenges much of what we think we know about the Great Kate. Previous biographies--mostly products of friends and fans--have recycled the stories she hid behind, taking Hollywood myths at face value. Mann goes deeper, delivering new details from friends and family who have not been previously interviewed and drawing on materials only available since Hepburn's death. With affection, intelligence, and a voluminous knowledge of Hollywood history, Mann shows us how a woman originally considered too special and controversial for fame learned the fine arts of movie stardom and transformed herself into an icon as durable and all-American as the Statue of Liberty.