The Jungle butchered the meatpacking industry when it came out in 1906. Exposing the grisly truth of the unsanitary practices that resulted from American wage slavery, the book was "aimed for the public's heart but by accident hit it in the stomach," according to Upton Sinclair. Even with the grossest portions censored out, The Jungle led to the pure-food legislation of 1906 and the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)....

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what...

"Thrilling and illuminating."—LA Times"A hypnotic psychological thriller." —PeopleA chance encounter sparks an unrelenting web of lies in this gripping and complex psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl.

Heidi Wood has always been a charitable woman: she works for a nonprofit and takes in stray cats. Still, her husband and daughter are horrified when Heidi returns home one day with a

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When the teenage daughters of some of Chicago's most influential families discover the body of a ritually murdered victim, investigator Warshawski explores theories that the killing is linked to a hostile media campaign against a senatorial candidate or a wealthy patriarch's childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania.

Maya Aziz, seventeen, is caught between her India-born parent's world of college and marrying a suitable Muslim boy and her dream world of film school and dating her classmate, Phil, when a terrorist attack changes her life forever.

Being a cop runs in Billy Harney's family. The son of Chicago's Chief of Detectives whose twin sister, Patty, also followed in their father's footsteps, there's nothing Billy won't give up for the job, including his life. Left for dead alongside his tempestuous former partner and a hard-charging assistant district attorney out for blood, Billy miraculously survives. But he remembers nothing about the events leading up to the shootout. Charged with...

When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet accidentally and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other's best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.

"Watch your brother," Beth Cappadora tells Vincent, 7. Five minutes later she returns, "Where is Ben?" It is the moment every parent fears and it arrives to a mother of three in Chicago. The novel follows the family as year after year the hope of finding Ben recedes. Nine years later a boy knocks on their door looking for lawn work. It can't be. It is.

"Obama and Biden reprise their roles as BFFs-turned-detectives as they chase Obama's stolen cell phone through the mean streets of Chicago--and right into a vast conspiracy."--