Akron Public Library

"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...

A Massachusetts State Police SWAT sniper saves a woman and her young son by shooting the woman's armed husband. Now he finds himself in a twisted minefield of sordid wealth and family secrets in Gardner's latest "New York Times" bestseller.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2020 Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence "A comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it's also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work . . . Bump's meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don't know...

Told from multiple viewpoints, Shae Tatum, an unarmed, thirteen-year-old black girl, is shot by a white police officer, throwing their community into upheaval and making it a target of demonstrators.

NYC chief assistant district attorney Butch Karp faces a difficult case when a serial killer begins stalking the homeless, a situation that is complicated when his daughter volunteers at the shelters where the murders are occurring.

"A gripping atmospheric thriller that finds the dark side of Portland, Maine. The Detective Byron mystery series is one of the finest to arrive in a long time." --#1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston In this latest enthralling mystery from #1 bestselling author Bruce Robert Coffin, Detective Sergeant John Byron faces the greatest challenge of his career. When a popular high school senior is shot by police following a late night robbery,...

"Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet has dreams of being an artist and one day leaving the Chicago projects she's grown up in. But after her older sister, Katia, is killed by an off-duty police officer, Beau knows she has to clear her sister's name by finding the only witness to the murder; Katia's no-good boyfriend, Jordan, who has gone missing. If she doesn't find him and tell the world what really happened, Katia's death will be ignored, like the deaths...

Alone . . . Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The mans finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react . . . and forever pay the consequences. Alone . . . thats where the nightmare began for cool, beautiful, and...