On Friday, July 13, 1906, fourteen-year-old Addie Lyerly descended the stairs of her Barber Junction, N.C. home and found her parents and one younger sibling bludgeoned to death with the butt of an axe. Her little sister, also injured, was barely alive, and the house had been recently set on fire. It was immediately and conveniently assumed that 5 black or mulatto tenant farmers and the wife of one had committed the crimes. Without ever going to trial, two men and one boy were convicted by a mob, stirred up by a racist press, and lynched near the railroad tracks in Salisbury, North Carolina. It was less than a month after the original murders. Although the mystery of who killed the Lyerlys remained unsolved at the time the first edition of A Game Called Salisbury was printed, Bill and Rachel James' new book, The Man From the Train, has shed new light on this case, perhaps providing the evidence that will fully exonerate Nease Gillespie, John Gillespie and Jack Dillingham, the three who were lynched on August 6, 1906. In the words of Yale History Professor, Glenda E. Gilmore, A Game Called Salisbury "pushes into the white South's darkest secrets" and exposes "the limits of justice under white supremacy."

In November 1991 the American flag was lowered for the last time at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. This act brought to an end American military presence in the Philippines that extended back over 90 years. It also represented the final act in a drama that began with the initial rumblings in April of that year of the Mount inatubo volcano, located about nine miles to the east of Clark. This book tells the remarkable story of the men and women of the Clark community and their ordeal in planning for and carrying out their evacuation from Clark in face of the impending volcanic activity. It documents the actions of those who remained on the base during the series of Mount Pinatubo' s eruptions, and the packing out of the base during the subsequent months. This is the story of the Ash Warriors, those Air Force men and women who carried out their mission in the face of an incredible series of natural disasters, including volcanic eruption, flood, typhoons, and earthquakes, all of which plagued Clark and the surrounding areas during June and July 1991.