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...

Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation unleashed on his family and community. This gripping story is about how children, families--and one boy--grow to understand American blackness.

"The charges: explosive. Alex Cross has never been on the wrong side of the law -- until now. Charged with gunning down followers of his nemesis Gary Soneji in cold blood, Cross is being turned into the poster child for trigger-happy cops who think they're above the law. Cross knows it was self-defense. But will a jury see it that way? The evidence: shocking. As Cross fights for his professional life and his freedom, his former partner John Sampson...

"After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and cornbread, fist fights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires him to run for sheriff. He wins, and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county. Then a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus's deputies. Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever...

Two teenagers in Los Angeles, one Korean-American and the other African-American, deal with the ripple effects of a shooting from decades ago after a new incident brings their families’ painful memories hurtling back.

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...

"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,...

"In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, veteran police officer Harry Cooper is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: believing one of them has a gun, Harry opens fire and Duante Reed, a young Black man, is killed. The "gun" in his hands was a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed. Detective Inaya Rahman is all too familiar with the name of...

When a woman--known only as Mother--moves her family from Atlanta to its wealthy suburbs, she discovers that neither the times nor the people have changed since her childhood in a small Southern town. Despite the intervening decades, Mother is met with the same questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? The American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants, she finds that her answer-- Here --is never enough. Mother's simmering anger...

"When Marvin Johnson's twin brother, Tyler, is shot and killed by a police officer, Marvin must fight injustice to learn the true meaning of freedom"--