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• THE VALLEYS LEGENDS & LEGACIES, VOL IV

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  Volume IV: Stories include Clovis, Madera, Sanger, Academy, Hanford, Fresno, Grangeville, Centerville, Fowler, Dos Palos

• LEGENDS OF THE CALIFORNIA BANDITOS

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  "California Banditos" presents extraordinary, little-known tales of the infamous bandits and highwaymen who plied their trade in early California.

• The Edge: The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California's Coast

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  Kim Steinhardt and Gary Griggs The Pacific coast is the most iconic region of California and one of the most fascinating and rapidly changing places in the world. Densely populated, urbanized, and industrialized—and also home to complex, fragile ecosystems—the coast is the place where humanity and nature coexist in a precarious balance that is never perfectly stable. The Edge is a dramatic snapshot of the California coast’s past, present, and probable future in a time of climate change and expanding human activity. Written by two marine experts who grew up on the coast, The Edge is both an appreciation of the coast’s natural and cultural uniqueness and a warning of the changes that threaten that uniqueness. As ocean levels rise, coastal communities are starting to erode, and entire neighborhoods have been lost to the sea. Coastal ecosystems and wildlife that were already stressed by human settlement now face new dangers. Fisheries, oil drilling, recreation, housing and environmental advocates compete to define the future of the region. A masterful and sweeping synthesis of environmental and social science, The Edge presents a comprehensive portrait of the history, people, communities, industries, ecology, and wildlife of the coast.

• CALIFORNIA JUSTICE

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  Introducing the victims and perpetrators responsible for California’s most notorious shootouts, lynchings, and assassinations, this account shows how homemade justice is never black-and-white. In relating these histories, this discussion also analyzes how and why Hollywood storylines almost always follow the same skewed and unrealistic arc in which the bad guys abuse the good guys, the good guy take the high road until the bad guy has gone too far, and the good guy picks off the bad guys, one by one, in an increasingly dramatic fashion.

• PRODIGAL SONS- PB

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  In the late 19th century, Christopher Evans, a former scout for George Custer?s 7th Cavalry, and John Sontag, an ex-railroad man, became the most wanted criminals in all of California. What series of events could have transformed such men into despised outlaws? How did Evans and Sontag end up in a frenzied life and death struggle with the law? Prodigal Sons tells the exciting and entertaining saga of these two men, detailing their lives from childhood until the aftermath of their violent collision with the powerful interests controlling California at that time. The cast of real-life characters enmeshed in this lurid account include the Dalton gang, U.S. Marshal Vernon C. Wilson (who boasted he had 27 notches on his gun and Evans and Sontag would make 29), Pelon and Jericho, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and Wells Fargo & Co.

• THE CALIFORNIA SNATCH RACKET

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  Subtitle: "Kidnappings During the Prohibition and Depression Eras." In California in the 1920s and 1930s, kidnapping—nicknamed the “snatch racket” by a cynical newspaperman—was the most booming criminal enterprise around. Driven by greed, desperation and sometimes plain stupidity, ransom artists preyed indiscriminately on Hollywood socialites, wealthy heiresses and even poor people who couldn’t pay a dime. Every new disappearance sold more newspapers, but for both the kidnappers and their unfortunate victims, even the simplest caper often went tragically wrong. “California Snatch Racket” brings this dark and forgotten era into shockingly vivid life. Richly illustrated, “California Snatch Racket” reflects newspaper, police, court and prison accounts of the times written in a style that places the reader on the scene. Avoiding supposition and sensationalism, the book offers true accounts of the crimes and the people. These 15 bizarre, often ironic tales illustrate the complex cruelties that flourished in the Golden Era of the Golden State. A modern city rises and lynches a pair of kidnappers. A victim begs leniency for his kidnapper in a case where a technicality demands the death penalty. A couple of college kids imitate the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping to prove their intellectual prowess and famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson fakes her own kidnapping to cover up an affair. “California Snatch Racket” recounts its stories in the manner of the times, while leaving judgment to the courts and the readers.