On Christmas Day, 1926, twelve-year-old Clotilde "Coco" Irvine received a blank diary as a present. Coco loved to write--and to get into scrapes--and her new diary gave her the opportunity to explain her side of the messes she created: "I'm in deep trouble through no fault of my own," her entries frequently began. The daughter of a lumber baron, Coco grew up in a twenty-room mansion on fashionable Summit Avenue at the peak of the Jazz Age, a time when music, art, and women's social status were all in a state of flux and the economy was still flying high. Coco's diary carefully records her...
On Christmas Day, 1926, twelve-year-old Clotilde "Coco" Irvine received a blank diary as a present. Coco loved to write--and to get into scrapes--and ...
The year is 1896, and St. Paul's magnificent Winter Carnival is under way when Holmes and Watson are summoned by the city's most powerful man, railroad magnate James J. Hill. A wealthy young man disappears on the eve of his wedding--and his fiancee suspiciously discards her wedding dress. After a grisly discovery in the carnival's Ice Palace leads to a flurry of clues, Holmes is on the case. His pursuit of the murderer takes him through the highest echelons of St. Paul society and into cahoots with Shadwell Rafferty, a gregarious saloonkeeper and part-time private investigator. Soon Holmes,...
The year is 1896, and St. Paul's magnificent Winter Carnival is under way when Holmes and Watson are summoned by the city's most powerful man, railroa...
In the summer of 1994, a workman at the historic mansion of railroad baron James J. Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, stumbles on a long-hidden wall safe. When experts arrive to open the safe and examine its contents, they make an astonishing discovery. There, inside, is a handwritten manuscript bearing the signature of John H. Watson, M.D. The manuscript contains the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Watson traveled to Minnesota to track a murderous arsonist--known only as the Red Demon--who is threatening both Hill and his Great Northern Railway. Set against the backdrop of the real,...
In the summer of 1994, a workman at the historic mansion of railroad baron James J. Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, stumbles on a long-hidden wall safe. ...
In the 1930s, some 6,000 Finnish Americans traveled to Karelia, a province in Northwestern Russia, hoping to leave the Depression behind and to establish a workers' paradise. Based on these true events, The Darkest Evening chronicles the story of Jake Maki, whose father, caught up in the socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota, moves their family to the Soviet Union. Instead of finding the utopia they were promised, Jake and his family encounter only disappointment and hardship. When Stalin's secret police begin targeting Americans for arrest, his...
In the 1930s, some 6,000 Finnish Americans traveled to Karelia, a province in Northwestern Russia, hoping to leave the Depression behind and to establ...
For fifteen-year-old Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota in 1900, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opportunity. After a tragic mining accident kills their beloved uncle, the family turns away from on the iron mines to pursue the dream of owning a homestead in the wilderness. This means constant hard work and new challenges for the entire family. But will it also allow Matti, the in-between child, the chance to escape from his older brother's shadow and gain the approval of his father, which he so desperately desires?
For fifteen-year-old Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota in 1900, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opp...