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The year 1968 saw an extraordinary range of protests across much of the western world. Some of these were genuinely revolutionary --- around 10 million French workers went on strike and the whole state teetered on the brink of collapse. Others were more easily contained, but had profound longer-term implications --- terrorist groups, feminist collectives and gay rights activists could all trace important roots to 1968. 1968 is a striking and original attempt half a century later to show how these events, which in some ways still seem so current, stemmed from histories and societies that are in practice now extraordinarily remote from our own time.

In a city of temptations unfolds a story of two men whose lives intertwine in both crime and a twisted friendship. The self-named Jack Riley finds a future in Shanghai as The Slots King, while Joe Farren, whose name was printed in neon across the Badlands, rises to fame and cashes in on Shanghai’s sins. Eyewitness accounts from moles at the Shanghai Municipal Police, letters home and contemporary newspaper articles furnish this meticulously researched story where French takes you deep into those Badlands, grips you by the throat and doesn’t let go.

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake is a volunteer as a telephone operator with the Auxillary Fire Services. When Emmy applies for a job at the London Evening Chronicle, her dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent suddenly seem achievable. But the job turns out to be working as a typist for the renowned advice columnist, Henrietta Bird. Mrs. Bird is very clear: letters containing any Unpleasantness must be tossed away. But when Emmy reads poignant notes from women who may have Gone Too Far with the wrong men, or who can’t bear to let their children be evacuated, she is unable to resist responding, and she secretly begins to write back to the readers who have poured out their troubles.

Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada --- Eagle and Crane --- are the star attractions of Earl Shaw's Flying Circus, a daredevil (and not exactly legal) flying act that traverses Depression-era California. The young men have a complicated relationship, thanks to the Thorn family's belief that the Yamadas --- Japanese immigrants --- stole land that should have stayed in the Thorn family. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and one of Shaw's planes mysteriously crashes, authorities discovered the charred bodies of Harry and his father, Kenichi, who had escaped from a Japanese internment camp. Thus begins an investigation into what really happened to cause the plane crash, who was in the plane when it fell from the sky, and why no one involved seems willing to tell the truth.

When Pru Marlowe is called to a forest clearing to help with an illegally trapped bear, she finds a colleague passed out drunk, his pet ferret locked in his truck. When one of her old running buddies turns up dead as well and then the town's pampered pets begin to disappear, Pru can't tell if her heavy-drinking colleague is involved --- or how much the ferret, a wise little creature called Frank, knows. Frank's not communicating --- even to her --- and for once the bad-girl animal psychic is at a loss. Pru knows her special skills set her apart as the only one who can shed light on these crimes --- and save the animals at risk.

 Growing up, Nora Watts only knew one parent --- her father. When he killed himself, she denied her grief and carried on with her life. Then a chance encounter with a veteran who knew him raises disturbing questions Nora can’t ignore. To make her peace with the past, she has to confront it. Finding the truth about her father’s life and his violent death takes her from Vancouver to Detroit where Sam Watts grew up, far away from his people and the place of his birth. In the Motor City, Nora discovers that the circumstances surrounding Sam’s suicide are more unsettling than she’d imagined. Back in the Pacific Northwest, former police detective turned private investigator Jon Brazuca is looking into the overdose death of a billionaire’s mistress. His search uncovers a startling connection to Nora, the infuriatingly distant woman he’d once tried to befriend.

Washington, DC, 1945. Lieutenant Ellis Voigt of the Office of Naval Intelligence is desperate to keep the secrets that threaten his life. The FBI suspects that he is the communist who murdered a Naval officer in Washington. The Soviets believe he’s holding back information from their contacts. When Voigt is sent to New Mexico on a secret mission, he is tailed by both the FBI and the Russians. Voigt is forced to face the dilemma he’d been trying to avoid: he can stop the Soviets from getting the bomb or he can save himself --- but he might not be able to do both.

West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses. Her world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sight lines of the most ruthless and powerful man at the agency. Her attempts to expose the dark truths about what she has witnessed will bring about repercussions that reach across decades and continents into the present day when a young man is arrested for the double murder of his parents, and his sister takes it upon herself to find out why he did it.

Across Europe, a secret organization has begun attacking diplomats. Back in the United States, a foreign ally demands the identity of a highly placed covert asset. In the balance hang the ingredients for all-out war. With his mentor out of the game, counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath must take on the role he has spent his career avoiding. But, as with everything else he does, he intends to rewrite the rules --- all of them.

On an early morning in November, a couple boards a private plane bound for Geneva, flying into a storm. Soon after, it simply drops off the radar, and its wreckage is later uncovered in the Alps. Among the disappeared is Matthew Werner, a banking insider at Swiss United, a powerful offshore bank. His young widow, Annabel, is left grappling with the secrets he left behind, including an encrypted laptop and a shady client list. As she begins a desperate search for answers, she determines that Matthew's death was no accident. Meanwhile, ambitious society journalist Marina Tourneau has finally landed at the top. While looking into Swiss United, Marina uncovers information that implicates some of the most powerful men in the financial world, including a few who are too close to home. The story could also be the answer to Annabel's heartbreaking search --- if Marina chooses to publish it.

Raised in a small town in the north of England known primarily for its cotton mills, football team and deep roots in the “Respectable Working Class,” Graham Caveney armed himself against the confusing nature of adolescence with a thick accent, a copy of Kafka, and a record collection including the likes of the Buzzcocks and Joy Division. All three provided him the opportunity to escape, even if just in mind, beyond his small-town borders. But, when those passions are noticed and preyed upon by a mentor, everything changes. Now, as an adult, Caveney attempts to reconcile his past and present, coming to grips with both the challenges and wonder of adolescence, music and literature.

After Jake Constable quits the drug business, his realtor/ex-wife, Nina, gets him a job as a housesitter for her wealthy clients. Jake celebrates by throwing a party in the mansion he was hired to look after. Unfortunately, the guest list gets out of hand, leaving Jake to contend with a hallucinogenic vitamin-dispensing yogi, a dead guy in the bathroom, and The Norwegian --- a criminal force of nature with a grudge against Jake. The situation threatens to become an international incident when Nina's powerbroker uncle and two secret agents from China show up to turn the screws on Jake. Soon after that, his friends start disappearing.

Diana Cooke came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations. In comes Captain Copperton, an outsider with no bloodline but plenty of cash, and he is determined to make Diana his wife. Diana knows that marrying him would ensure that Saratoga will always be theirs. Yet Copperton is cruel as well as vulgar; while she admires his money, she cannot abide him. Carrying the weight of Saratoga and generations of Cookes on her shoulders, she ultimately succumbs to duty, sacrificing everything, including love.

After five long years, the unshakable confidence Cass Coyne felt as a bride is gone. Her husband, Jonathan, on the other hand, is still smitten --- so it comes as a complete shock to Jonathan when Cass suddenly requests a marital "intermission": a six-month separation during which they'll decide if the comfortable life they've built is still the one they both want. Aside from a monthly custodial exchange of their beloved dog, contact will be limited. But as the months pass, they begin to see that calculated silences just like these have helped to drive them apart --- and that it may finally be time to confront the blistering secrets they've been avoiding.

In March of 1603, as she helps to nurse the dying Queen Elizabeth of England, Frances Gorges dreams of her parents’ country estate, where she has learned to use flowers and herbs to become a much-loved healer. She is happy to stay at home when King James of Scotland succeeds to the throne. His court may be shockingly decadent, but his intolerant Puritanism sees witchcraft in many of the old customs --- punishable by death. But when her ambitious uncle forcibly brings Frances to the royal palace, she is a ready target for the twisted scheming of the Privy Seal, Lord Cecil. As a dark campaign to destroy both King and Parliament gathers pace, culminating in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Frances is surrounded by danger.

Two Truths and a Lie. Vivian, Natalie, Allison and first-time camper Emma Davis played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin into the darkness. Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma is asked to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor. Seeing an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends all those years ago, she agrees. Emma is assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager, and cryptic clues that Vivian left behind about the camp's twisted origins begin surfacing. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing mysterious threats in the present.

Sixteen children and four adults are killed in a devastating boat crash in Copenhagen. Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Simonsen is called in, only to discover that this was no accident and that one of the passengers has a very personal connection to the homicide team. Reeling from this revelation and not knowing who to trust, Simonsen follows a trail that eventually leads him to Bosnia and a network of criminal misconduct. All evidence points towards one shady figure: a high-ranking army specialist with a suspicious past. But the more Simonsen digs, the further the truth slips from his grasp.

In an age defined by hyper-connectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. Inspiring and illuminating, WHAT TO READ AND WHY includes selections culled from Prose’s previous essays, reviews and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction, on works by masters of the short story and even on books by photographers like Diane Arbus.

Alexandra “Al” Silber seems to have everything. But when her beloved father dies after a battle with cancer when she is just a teenager, it feels like the end of everything. Lost in grief, Al and her mother hardly know where to begin with the rest of their lives. Into this grieving house burst Al’s three friends from theatre camp, determined to help out as only drama students know how --- and they’re moving in for the duration. Over the course of that winter, the now five-strong household will battle with everything Death can throw at them. They will learn about love and will eventually return to the world, altered in different ways by their time in a home by a river.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper, and local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. More killings occur in what appears to be an escalating sequence of retaliations. But when Gurney questions the true nature of all this bloodshed, his involvement is suddenly terminated. Despite intense opposition from the police, as well as from dangerous fanatics lurking in the shadows, he begins to uncover an astonishing structure of deception.

When a historic barn burns to the ground in the middle of the night, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called in to investigate. At first, it looks like an accident, but when the body of 18-year-old Daniel Gingerich is found inside --- burned alive --- Kate suspects murder. Who would want a well-liked, hardworking young Amish man dead? Kate delves into the investigation only to find herself stonewalled by the community to which she once belonged. Is their silence a result of the Amish tenet of separation? Or is this peaceful and deeply religious community conspiring to hide a truth no one wants to talk about?

Annie Marlow has been through the worst. Rocked by tragedy, she heads to the one place that makes her happy: Oceanside in the Pacific Northwest, the destination of many family vacations when she was a teenager. Once there, Annie begins to restore her broken spirit, thanks in part to the folks she meets. Chief among them is Keaton, a local painter whose quiet, peaceful nature offers her both comfort and reprieve from her grief, and the two begin to grow closer. Then events threaten to undo the idyll Annie has come to enjoy. And when the opportunity of a lifetime lands in her lap, she is torn between the excitement of a new journey toward success and the safe and secure arms of the haven --- and the man --- she’s come to call home.

A struggling actor, a Brit in America without a green card, Claire needs work and money to survive. Then she gets both. But nothing like she expected. Claire agrees to become a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers. Hired to entrap straying husbands, she must catch them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules? Never hit on the mark directly. Make it clear you’re available, but he has to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not coercion. The innocent have nothing to hide. Then the game changes. When the wife of one of Claire’s targets is violently murdered, the cops are sure the husband is to blame. Desperate to catch him before he kills again, they enlist Claire to lure him into a confession.

Amateur private investigator Ash McKenna is home. After more than a year on the road he's ready to face the demons he ran away from in New York City. And he’s decided what he wants to do with his life: Become a private investigator. No more working as a thug for hire. But within moments of stepping off the plane, Ginny Tonic, the drag queen crime lord who once employed him --- and then tried to have him killed --- asks to see him.

Washed up teen star Liv Hendricks quit acting after her beloved younger sister inexplicably disappeared following a Hollywood party gone wrong. Liv barely escaped with her life, and her sister was never heard from again. But all this time, someone's been waiting patiently to finish what was started. Now 15 years later, broke and desperate, Liv is forced to return to the spotlight. She crowdfunds a webseries in which she'll pose as a real-life private detective. When a mysterious donor challenges her to investigate a series of disappearances outside a town made famous by the horror movies filmed there, Liv has no choice but to accept.