This heartwarming collection of true stories reveals the thrill and the freedom of traveling America's back roads on a bicycle, and the joy of discovering unforgettable characters along the way.From the moment he borrowed his big sister's banana-seat bike and careened down the neighborhood hill at the age of five, Joe Kurmaskie has known the intoxicating freedom and power of the bicycle. In this big-hearted collection of stories, Joe -- dubbed the Metal Cowboy by a blind rancher he encountered one icy morning in Idaho -- tells of his whimsical, wild adventures through the American landscape.

Against his better judgment, Hollywood-hating private investigator Nate Ross takes on a Tinseltown case in the spring of 1938. It sounds like a milk run: find an alcoholic screenwriter whose absence is stalling production on Republic Pictures' latest Western. But when the missing rummy turns up dead, and Nate learns that somebody's going to lethal lengths to keep Stardust Trail from being made, his simple case becomes far more complex, and deadly. He finds himself traveling in unfamiliar territory: the world of B-movie cowboys, and the lines between the "reel" West and the real West begin to blur as Nate wrangles a twisted case of murder and sabotage pointing back nearly forty years to a bloody, real-life "Wild West" crime.

In Chokecherry, Lyd Havens gathers their griefs: the sudden death of their uncle when they were a child, losing both of their grandparents in the span of a year, estrangement from a parent, and unrequited love, among others. What follows is a bouquet of visceral, unflinching poems that simultaneously lament and rejoice. Through memory and all its unreliability, the landscapes of their genealogy, and allusions to grief in history and art, Havens explores the toll mental illness and addiction have taken on their family, while still giving thanks for the love that has helped them not only survive, but live. Chokecherry is equal parts mourning and celebration, loss and growth, rage and tenderness.

May Anna Kovacks was discovered on the dustry streets of Butte, Montana and went on to become a Hollywood star. War, fame, marriage, love, and heartbreak came and went. What never changed was the bond she shared with her two best friends, Effa Commander and Whippy Bird. When scandal, murder, and betrayal made a legend of May Anna, only Effa and Whippy Bird could set the record straight.