Contact: Catherine Cullen

                                                                                                                212-782-9634 / cacullen@randomhouse.com

How far would you go to find yourself?

RADIO SHANGRI-LA:

What I Discovered on My Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth

by Lisa Napoli

Now available in paperback with an all-new afterword

No matter how carefully you plan your life, fate may have other plans. When a chance encounter with a stranger led to a volunteer opportunity half a world away, Lisa had no idea the journey would change her life. RADIO SHANGRI-LA: What I Discovered on My Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth (Broadway Paperbacks: April 3, 2012) is the amazing true story of Lisa’s experiences in and around Bhutan to help with the launch of the country’s first youth-oriented radio station.

Radio Shangri-La has touched readers around the world with its inviting portrait of this remote Himalayan nation few get the chance to explore and its honest account of a woman grappling with how to make her way in our busy, challenging world. Lisa’s keen journalistic eye reveals:

–Her conflicted feelings about bringing the disruption of modern media into a country that measures its success in terms of “Gross National Happiness” rather than in GDP

–The extensive changes that have occurred in Bhutan in the last few years, and if the country is better or worse for those changes

–The profound midlife crisis that motivated Lisa’s journey, and how the experience led to insights that have radically changed her outlook

–Some of her greatest experiences in Bhutan, and her ongoing commitment to help the Bhutanese

–Bhutan’s unique charms, including the colorful dress worn by the locals; the profusion of phalluses as decoration (to ward off envy!); and the Bhutanese love of gut-singeing spicy food

–The resistance the Bhutanese had to their country becoming a democracy, and how the transition is going thus far

*In a new afterword for the paperback, Lisa examines the growing community of Bhutanese refugees in the United States and the little-known national dispute that drove them here*

Dubbed the happiest kingdom in the world, Bhutan is a tiny country most people have never even heard of, let alone are able to point out on a map. Nestled between China and India, the Himalayan kingdom didn’t even have an airport until 1984, and television and Internet were only allowed in the country in 1999. Untouched by Western influence, this beautiful mountain nation was considered a real-life Shangri-La. After a century of monarchy, the beloved king abdicated his throne and began the transition to democracy. Enter Lisa Napoli, the power of modern media, and the introduction of the free press.

As a special diplomatic volunteer for Bhutan, Lisa had a chance to experience the country like few others. Tourism in the kingdom is heavily regulated and with a hefty per-day tourist tax, visits are usually short and reserved for the wealthy. As a long-term guest, Lisa witnessed the daily challenges faced by the Bhutanese people, cut off from the world for so long only to be suddenly inundated by the sights and sounds of the West via modern media.

Bhutan influenced Lisa right back; the sincerity and deeply held spirituality of the people were the breath of fresh air she had been seeking as an antidote to the 24-7 media environment to which she had dedicated her career. Balancing and integrating the two cultures transformed Lisa’s perspective and reinvigorated her life and sense of purpose.

RADIO SHANGRI-LA is a sparkling and inspiring read that will jump-start your sense of adventure and possibility—perfect for anyone who has ever wondered, Is there more to life than this?

# # # #

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LISA NAPOLI contributes to public radio station KCRW in Los Angeles.  Her last staff job was on the public radio show Marketplace. An early chronicler of the dawn of the World Wide Web at the New York Times CyberTimes, she has also been the Internet correspondent at MSNBC. She began her career at CNN, worked in local news in North Carolina, and has directed several documentaries about Southern culture.  Her proudest accomplishments are learning to swim at age thirty-seven, hosting open houses every Friday night at her apartment, and gathering friends to cook at a homeless shelter (as well as her other volunteer work).   www.LisaNapoli.com.

RADIO SHANGRI-LA: What I Discovered on My Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth

Lisa Napoli

Broadway Paperbacks * On sale: April 3, 2012

Price: $15.00 * 320 pages * ISBN: 978-0-307-45303-7

Also available as an eBook: 978-0-307-45304-4

www.CrownPublishing.com

Contact: Sarah Breivogel, 212-572-2722
sbreivogel@randomhouse.com 

The author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Look Me in the Eye returns with endearing stories and practical advice that will help anyone labeled “different” find his or her path to success.

BE DIFFERENT

My Adventures with Asperger’s

& My Advice for Fellow Aspergians, Misfits, Families, and Teachers

By John Elder Robison

“I certainly hope reading my stories and learning about the ways I coped with problems and found my path entertain you while also giving some useful insights into dealing with your own quirks, or those of someone you care about.”

—John Robison, from Be Different 

When John Robison published his memoir Look Me in the Eye in 2007, readers were given a window into the life of a man who spent forty years growing up knowing that he was different but not knowing why. Born before the Asperger’s diagnosis existed, Robison struggled for years without answers to his inexplicable behavior. Unable to pick up social cues or express his emotions, Robison was labeled defective by his parents, as well as the kids on the playground. Inspiring and intensely moving, Look Me in the Eye quickly became a New York Times bestseller.

In his new book BE DIFFERENT: My Adventures with Asperger’s & My Advice for Fellow Aspergians, Misfits, Families, and Teachers (Broadway, March 20, 2012), now out in paperback, Robison argues that Asperger’s is about difference, not just disability. With honesty, dark humor, and unapologetic eccentricity, he answers questions like: 

√How to read others and follow their behaviors when in uncertain social situations

√ Why manners matter

√  How to harness your powers of concentration to master difficult skills

√  How to deal with bullies

√  When to make an effort to fit in, and when to embrace your eccentricity

√  How to identify special gifts and use them to your advantage

Equally important, Robison offers practical advice—to Aspergians, their parents, and educators—on how Aspergians can improve the weak communication and social skills that keep them from taking full advantage of, or even recognizing, their often remarkable gifts.

Since the publication of Look Me in the Eye, Robison’s platform has increased exponentially. Last fall, he was profiled in an episode of the Science Channel series INGENIOUS MINDS, and he appears regularly in the media today.  He serves on committees and review boards for the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.  He’s been named to the science board of Autism Speaks, and he serves on the advisory board for Massachusetts General Hospital’s YouthCare program.  Robison remains active in TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) research at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and is in demand as a speaker at schools, colleges, and organizations throughout the country. Like Temple Grandin, John Elder Robison is very involved in shaping the direction of research on many fronts and has become a go-to authority on the subject of Asperger’s.  

On sale just in time for April’s National Autism Awareness Month, BE DIFFERENT is a must read for anyone who has Asperger’s, is raising a child with Asperger’s, or works with Aspergians. And for those who enjoyed reading about Robison’s eccentric upbringing and gravitated toward his wit and humor, BE DIFFERENT offers more of the same. Every person, Aspergian or not, has something unique to offer the world, and every person has the capacity to create strong, loving bonds with their family and friends. BE DIFFERENT will help readers and those they love find their path to success. 

 * * * * *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JOHN ELDER ROBISON, born in Athens, Georgia, grew up in the 1960s before the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome existed. Today he has claimed his spot on the autism spectrum and often gives talks about his life with Asperger’s. He blogs for Psychology Today and is an adjunct faculty member at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts. His previous book, Look Me in the Eye, was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into ten languages. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

BE DIFFERENT
My Adventures with Asperger’s & My Advice for Fellow Aspergians, Misfits,
Families, and Teachers
by John Elder Robison

Broadway • March 20, 2012

Price: $14.00 paperback • 304 pages • ISBN 978-0-307- 88482-4
www.crownpublishing.com
Visit John Robison at www.johnrobison.com or at http://jerobison.blogspot.com  

Also available in audio and electronic versions

An instant New York Times bestseller in hardcover!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sarah Breivogel, 212-572-2722

sbreivogel@randomhouse.com

Corporations need her. Governments pay her. Criminals fear her.
But nobody sees her coming. Vanessa Munroe is…

THE INFORMATIONIST

by Taylor Stevens

Part Jack Reacher, part Sydney Bristow, Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—for corporations, government agencies, and private clients who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. With her keen analytical mind, uncanny knack for languages, and somewhat androgynous physique, Munroe is able to succeed where others fail. When it was published in hardcover earlier this year, Taylor Stevens’ pulse-pounding debut THE INFORMATIONIST (Broadway, on sale October 28, 2011) became an instant New York Times bestseller, and demanded the attention of readers and critics alike. Now available in paperback, this riveting thriller – the first in a trilogy featuring the unforgettable heroine Vanessa “Michael” Munroe – is about to captivate an even bigger audience.

Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe had a childhood that was anything but ordinary. Her penchant for rebellion led her into the company of infamous gunrunner when she was just fourteen years old. She learned how to fight and to navigate the unforgiving terrain of central Africa, quickly building a reputation as the young white girl who could speak the native languages and conform to nearly any unique community. As she grew up, Munroe also learned how to keep a secret. It was that secret that sent her running from Africa and from everything she’d ever known, without ever looking back. Until now…

After his stepdaughter goes missing in Equatorial Guinea while traveling with friends, billionaire Texas oil tycoon Richard Burbank appeals to Munroe for help. Four years, dozens of investigations, and countless dollars have flown by, leaving Munroe as the last and best hope for finding out what really happened to Emily Burbank. Once she agrees to return to Africa, Munroe is quickly pulled into the mystery of the missing girl that seems to permeate the air in the all-too-familiar lands of her childhood.

As Munroe digs deeper and deeper into the last known whereabouts of Emily, it becomes clear that someone wants this to be the first and last time that Munroe does not succeed in getting the information that she seeks. Betrayed, cut off from civilization, and fighting for her life, Munroe has no choice but to face the past she has tried so long to forget, if she has any hope of getting out of Africa alive.

Much like her worldly heroine, Taylor Stevens lived for part of her life in unruly Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Born into the Children of God cult, Stevens lived all over the world, spending time in Germany, Mexico, France, Japan, and many other countries all before the age of fourteen, and then later, Africa. As a child, Taylor was separated from her parents and siblings for months at a time, and in lieu of schooling was made to care for dozens of other children, clean and cook for commune members, and beg for money on the street. Forced to end her education at age twelve, she used her imagination as a coping mechanism, creating stories for other commune children. Once caught writing stories, however, she was put into solitary confinement and held without food. Her stories were destroyed forever.

In Africa, Taylor plotted her escape from the cult. Nearly penniless, without formal education, and with no social structure on “the outside,” a pregnant Taylor, her husband, and their young child fled for the United States. Once in Texas, spurred by a desire to live without any regrets, Taylor scoured garage sales for old books and read voraciously. Slowly, her natural gift for storytelling came back and she began writing the incredible saga of Vanessa Munroe.

Fans of Steig Larsson’s feisty protagonist Lisbeth Salander will be thrilled to discover the fierce and determined Vanessa Munroe, especially since she’ll be back to star in Stevens’ much-anticipated second book, THE INNOCENT, coming in hardcover from Crown in December 2011. With unique and complex characters, and a plot that transports readers all over the world from the United States to Equatorial Guinea, THE INFORMATIONIST grabs readers from the very beginning and never lets go.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born into the Children of God, raised in communes across the globe, and denied an education beyond the sixth grade, TAYLOR STEVENS broke free of the cult in order to follow hope and a vague idea of what possibilities lay beyond. She now lives in Texas, and is writing her third Vanessa Michael Munroe novel.

THE INFORMATIONIST

by Taylor Stevens

Broadway • October 18, 2011

Price: $14.00 paperback • 336 pages • ISBN 978-0-307-71710-8
www.crownpublishing.com
www.taylorstevensbooks.com

Also available in audio and electronic versions

Don’t miss THE INNOCENT (Crown, 978-0-307-71712-2, $24.00, on sale December 27, 2011), Taylor Steven’s highly anticipated follow-up to
THE INFORMATIONIST!

 

Contact: Campbell Wharton

212-572-2296

cwharton@randomhouse.com

Chris Cillizza, editor of The Fix,

to write book in time for 2012 presidential election

 
World and eBook rights were sold to Sean Desmond at Crown Archetype for Broadway Paperbacks by Gail Ross.

Cillizza, also a contributor for MSNBC, will write “The Gospel According to The Fix: Everything You Need to Know about Politics.” It will be published next July and will include humorous political stories, tidbits from the beltway, fun things you haven’t heard about your local politicians and more. “The Gospel According to The Fix” will show everyone from political junkies to casual observers how things really work in the wonderfully odd game of politics and political coverage. It will also examine politicians’ timeless foibles in the traditionally amusing, insightful way Cillizza writes on the blog.

The book will give readers a front row seat and will be the must-have guide for the 2012 campaign. “We are delighted that the analysis and insights that Post audiences have come to expect and love from Chris in print and online will now find a new platform in a book,” said Raju Narisetti, managing editor of The Washington Post.

Cillizza’s blog, The Fix, is a key anchor to The Washington Post’s PostPolitics.com. His weekly column runs Mondays in A section of The Washington Post and his Worst Week in Washington feature runs in the Outlook section of the newspaper on Sundays.  You can follow him on Twitter @thefix.  Chris Cillizza, editor of The Fix and managing editor of Postpolitics.com, one of the top bloggers on The Washington Post website, will publish a book just in time for the craziness of the 2012 presidential election with Broadway Paperbacks. It was announced today by Tina Pohlman, Vice President, Publisher of Three Rivers Press and Broadway Paperbacks/Crown Publishing Group.(August 16, 2011 – New York, NY)

Broadway Paperbacks is an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG.

#          #          #

 Contact: Rachel Rokicki

212-782-8455

                                                         rrokicki@randomhouse.com

From the bustle of modern Tehran to the gardens of Shiraz to spectacular mosques and ancient palaces of Isfahan, this is the breathtaking true-story of one man’s deeply personal journey into the heart of Iran.

SAVED BY BEAUTY

Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran

By Roger Housden

*Author of the best-selling Ten Poems series*

In early 2009 Roger Housden traveled extensively throughout Iran in search of the human face of an ancient culture that has been branded part of the “axis of evil.” The result is his eye-opening new book, Saved by Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran (Broadway Books; May 17, 2011). Housden illuminates this complex country and its people by meeting with creative individuals, from sheikhs and philosophers, to artists, poets, and political analysts. Along the way, he himself is changed by the beauty, the depth, and also the sorrow of this misunderstood culture.

Forty years ago, Housden discovered the poetry of Rumi and Hafez, read tales of exotic Sufis, and was carried away by the music and wisdom of a culture that reached back over three thousand years, a culture that gave us our word for paradise. Longing to see if the Iran of his imagination continued to exist, or whether it had been lost forever in the revolutionary zeal of the last thirty years, Housden sets off on a journey to discover a country filled with remarkable contradictions. He leads us into the mountains of Kurdistan to join the Sufis in their ceremonies, then on to the fabled cities of Isfahan and Shiraz, introducing a cast of Iranians ranging from famous artists and filmmakers to politicians, sheikhs, and religious leaders, to waiters, shopkeepers, and students. Housden shows us a place rich with history, delicious foods, intricate architecture, and breathtaking music and poetry. 

SAVED BY BEAUTY also examines the dynamics and myths of this exotic land. Housden explains that in an overwhelmingly young nation—seventy percent of Iran’s population is under twenty-five—use of the worldwide web and of plastic surgeons is as common as in New York, and yet simultaneously, there is also a deep national pride in the country’s art, traditions, and historical achievements. Housden takes the work of Rumi, the poet, as his guide for the journey, and in a country where everyone still knows some of his lines by heart, the twelfth-century sage helps Housden better appreciate the longings and aspirations of Iran’s people and culture. When Housden’s return home hangs in the balance due to his interrogation by the Iranian security services, who give him the choice of five years in Evin Prison or becoming one of their agents in the United States, Rumi’s words become not only a source of comfort but also a point of common ground with his captors. Housden, brought face to face with the reality that beauty and truth, deceit and violence, are inextricably mingled in the affairs of human life, was forever changed. 

A richly textured story of many threads, SAVED BY BEAUTY is a pilgrimage, a prayer, a heartfelt reminder, a poet-traveler’s window into the eternal soul of Iran.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROGER HOUSDEN is the author of twenty books, including the best-selling Ten Poems series and the novella Chasing Rumi.  English by birth, he has been a writer for the Guardian and an interviewer for the BBC. Housden emigrated to the U.S. in 1998 and now lives in the Bay Area.  Visit: www.rogerhousden.com/

SAVED BY BEAUTY

Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran

Author: Roger Housden

Publisher: Broadway Books; Publication Date: May 17, 2011
Hardcover; 320 pages; Price: $24.00; ISBN-13: 978-0-307-58773-2

For more information about SAVED BY BEAUTY or to schedule an interview with Roger Housden please contact

Rachel Rokicki at 212-782-8455 or rrokicki@randomhouse.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Penny Simon

psimon@randomhouse.com

865.675.1705

PERPETUAL NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WIDELY LAUDED AS

BEST BOOK OF 2010

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

• • • • •

After nearly one year on the New York Times bestseller list (and counting), the widely heralded THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot will be published in paperback on March 8, 2011, by Broadway Paperbacks. It tells the rich, enthralling story of Henrietta Lacks, the forgotten woman behind one of the most important tools in modern medicine, and of Lacks’s descendants, many of whom feel betrayed by the scientific establishment.

Since the book was published in hardcover, it has enjoyed not only tremendous commercial success but has also had a significant and rarely seen impact on how scientists and medical researchers approach their work; how doctors interact with their patients; how courts rule in legal cases involving tissue samples taken without informed consent; discussions of future policy changes; and of course the Lacks family itself. Skloot has established a foundation (HenriettaLacksFoundation.org) that began awarding grants in August 2010, among them tuition and books for five of Henrietta’s descendants, and assistance with health-care expenses for many of them. Further, THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and is being translated into more than twenty-five languages and adapted into a young-adult edition. It has also been adopted by hundreds of high schools and universities as part of their curriculums. Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball are producing the film version for HBO.

Born in 1920 in Clover, Virginia, Henrietta Lacks was a poor tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors. In 1951, she developed a strangely aggressive cancer, and doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took a tissue sample without her knowledge. She died without knowing that her cells would become immortal—the first to grow and survive indefinitely in culture. HeLa cells, as they are called, were essential in developing the polio vaccine. They have aided in the development of in-vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping, and have helped us to better understand the workings of cancer and innumerable viruses. Even today, HeLa is the most widely used cell line in labs worldwide, bought and sold by the billions. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they would weigh more than fifty million metric tons—more than a hundred Empire State Buildings.

After learning about the HeLa cell line in high school, Rebecca Skloot became consumed by curiosity about the woman behind the cells. During the decade it took her to chase down and chronicle this remarkable story, she journeyed from state-of-the-art scientific laboratories to the tobacco fields of southern Virginia to East Baltimore, where the Lacks family lives today. She spent years winning the trust of Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who longed to know more about her mother and to better understand the science behind her cells, which often seemed more like science fiction. With this book, we too become immersed in the story of the Lacks family, and are shocked to discover that Henrietta’s husband and children did not find out about her “immortality,” or the enormous profits her cells had generated, until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using blood samples from her family in research without informed consent. The family had grown up surrounded by preaching, faith healing, and voodoo; suddenly they were plunged into a world of arcane-sounding science, wrestling with feelings of pride, betrayal, and fear. While biotech companies had made millions selling HeLa, many of Henrietta’s descendants could not even afford health insurance.

In THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, Rebecca Skloot brilliantly weaves together the Lackses’ story—past and present—with the story of the first culturing of HeLa cells, the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, and the birth of bioethics. A combination of investigative reporting, crystalline science writing, and riveting narrative, the book leaves as indelible an impression as Henrietta’s cells.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

REBECCA SKLOOT is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many others. She is coeditor of The Best American Science Writing 2011 and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She was named one of five surprising leaders of 2010 by the Washington Post. Skloot’s debut book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. It was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than sixty media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, People, and the New York Times. It is being translated into more than twenty-five languages, adapted into a young reader edition, and being made into an HBO film produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Skloot is the founder and president of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. She lives in Chicago. For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com, where you’ll find links to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS

By Rebecca Skloot

Broadway Paperbacks • On-sale date: March 8, 2011 • ISBN 978-1-4000-5218-9  • Price: $16.00

RebeccaSkloot.com • HenriettaLacksFoundation.org

Contact: Rachel Rokicki  

212-782-8455

rrokicki@randomhouse.com 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES, THE HORRIFIC TRUE STORY OF THE

DOUBLE LIFE OF COLONEL RUSSELL WILLIAMS, WHO WAS BOTH A RESPECTED FIGURE IN THE CANADIAN MILITARY AND A SADO-SEXUAL SERIAL

CRIMINAL AND MURDERER

Colonel Russell Williams, the commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, was a highly regarded officer in the Canadian military. A decorated pilot, Williams had flown VIP aircraft for such dignitaries as Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Governor General Michaëlle Jean. The news of his arrest and conviction in 2010 on multiple charges of murder and sexual assault reverberated across Canada and made international headlines. The disturbing photographs and trophies from Williams’s terror spree that served as evidence of his appalling deeds left the public baffled as to how an exemplary, outstanding citizen could be transformed into a terrifying predator. “In thirty years of writing about crime in Canada and conflict abroad, I thought I’d seen every kind of killer,” writes award-wining journalist Timothy Appleby, “but Russell Williams did not resemble any of them and in one way he seemed the scariest of them all because so many people who’d dealt with him had respected and liked him so much.” Quite simply, Russell Williams defied all of the previous profiles and preconceptions of what constitutes a serial killer. 

On April 12, 2011, Broadway Paperbacks will publish A NEW KIND OF MONSTER: The Secret Life and Shocking True Crimes of an Officer . . . and a Murderer ($15.00; 978-0-307-88872-3), Timothy Appleby’s extensive and provocative look at one of the most shocking criminal sprees in Canadian history. “Thoughout his long military career, [Williams had] been almost universally seen as a smart, decent guy, a stickler for organization, and a bit awkward socially, but also very generous and kind. What had changed him?” That is the question that Timothy Appleby has been asking himself since news broke of Russell Williams’s arrest. In A NEW KIND OF MONSTER, Appleby examines Williams’s early life, searching for clues as to what might have triggered his shocking behavior. Although his parents divorced when he was quite young, Williams’s mother soon remarried and created a stable home life for her children. A gifted athlete and musician, Williams would go on to attend an exclusive private school for boys in Toronto and graduate from one of the country’s top universities before enlisting in the Canadian forces. His rise through the ranks would culminate with him commanding 8 Wing/CFB Trenton, Canada’s most important air base. Williams’s back story is hardly the kind that criminal profilers would peg for a future serial killer.

A NEW KIND OF MONSTER chronicles the incredible twists and turns in the Williams case. Amidst numerous dead ends where their investigation came up cold, it was a lucky break that led the police to Russell Williams’s doorstep. Timothy Appleby documents the exhaustive and brilliant interrogation of Williams by police, resulting in his confession to the murders of Corporal Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd. And, for the first time ever, Appleby also makes public important information regarding Russell Williams’s guilty plea. 

Appleby establishes that Russell Williams was not a sociopath. He did not display the traits of being a cold, detached, narcissistic manipulator that are common among serial killers. He had strong feelings and emotions and attachments (especially to his wife and the military). Most important, as his behavior during his interrogation with police and during the trial demonstrated, he does have a conscience. A NEW KIND OF MONSTER explores various theories that have been used to explain Russell Williams’s brutal actions, everything from his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, to the side effects of powerful medication that he was taking for a painful physical ailment, to ongoing grief over the death of his beloved cat, to evidence of his increasingly abnormal sexual behavior. Can any one theory explain why Russell Williams committed these crimes? As one police insider summed it up, “Why did he do it? Because he’s a bright, bright guy. Intelligent guys get bored easily, and he’s got this deviant thing. And while we are on the outside looking at his life and say ‘he’s at the top of the heap,’ that wasn’t enough for him.”

Exhaustively researched and singularly incisive, A NEW KIND OF MONSTER is the definitive account of the most unlikely serial killer of all time, whose savage actions stunned the nation and sent shock waves through the Canadian military.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TIMOTHY APPLEBY is a longtime crime reporter and foreign correspondent for the Globe and Mail.

A NEW KIND OF MONSTER

The Secret Life and Shocking True Crimes of an Officer . . . and a Murderer

By Timothy Appleby

Published by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

Paperback; $15.00; 304 pages; Publication Date: April 12, 2011; ISBN 978-0-307-88872-3

www.broadwaypaperbacks.com

For more information about A NEW KIND OF MONSTER or to schedule an interview with

Timothy Appleby, please contact Rachel Rokicki at 212-782-8455 or rrokicki@randomhouse.com.

Contact: Dyana Messina

(212) 572-2098

dmessina@randomhouse.com

Speaking out for the first time,

 the son of the most violent mobster in Chicago

shares the gripping true story of how he worked with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to put his own father behind bars and

bring down one of the last great American crime families.

OPERATION FAMILY SECRETS

How a Mobster’s Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago’s Murderous Crime Family

By Frank Calabrese, Jr.,

Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman, and Paul Pompian

Advance Praise for OPERATION FAMILY SECRETS

“I couldn’t stop reading this gripping account of Frank Calabrese Jr.’s decision to cooperate with the FBI that took down his father, uncle, and the last American crime syndicate.”

—Nick Pileggi, author and screenwriter of Wiseguy, Goodfellas, and Casino

“This suspenseful account, punctuated with riveting excerpts from the tapes, reads like a thriller.”

—Publishers Weekly

 “An undeniably engaging tale, capturing the nitty-gritty of daily life in the ‘crews’ of the Outfit.”

—Kirkus Reviews 

On a cranky old Smith Corona manual typewriter in the Federal Correction Institution prison library in Milan, Michigan, Frank Calabrese, Jr., began writing a letter that would change his life forever. The son of notorious mobster Frank Calabrese, Sr., Frank Jr. had spent his life working alongside his father and Uncle Nick in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion as part of Chicago’s murderous crime family known as “the Outfit.” At age thirty-nine, he was locked away on RICO charges with his father and uncle. Estranged from his wife and children and facing a lengthy prison term, Frank Jr. made a decision he never thought himself capable of—he would betray his father. In that letter, later sent to the FBI, he wrote, “I feel I have to help you keep this sick man locked up forever,” and so began the landmark case that would come to be known as “Operation Family Secrets.”

Now, for the first time, Frank Jr. shares his story in OPERATION FAMILY SECRETS: How a Mobster’s Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago’s Murderous Crime Family (March 8, 2011; Broadway Books). In a dramatic tale that reads like the best of thrillers, Frank discusses what life was like growing up as the son of a violent mobster, his own entrance into the Outfit at the age of eighteen, and the painful, life-threatening chain of events that would follow as he and a dedicated team of FBI agents and federal prosecutors worked to put his father away for good. For six months, unmonitored, unprotected, and asking nothing for his cooperation, Frank Jr. wore a wire in the prison yard, where his father would reveal over a decade’s worth of crime, corruption, and murder. Sharing with his son intimate details, it was these recorded conversations and Frank Jr.’s testimony that would earn Frank Sr. a term of life in prison. While the FBI had previously solved only eight mob murders in one hundred years, Frank Jr.’s work helped them solve forty murders and sent two Outfit bosses and twelve of its highest-ranking members to prison, effectively bringing down one of the last great American crime syndicates. To this day, the “Operation Family Secrets” trial stands as the most extensive mob-murder racketeering case in U.S. history.

Frank Calabrese, Jr., holds nothing back, sharing previously unreported details from the case and offering an insider’s look at the real inner dealing of organized crime. OPERATION FAMILY SECRETS lifts the veil on the mafia’s infamous web of secrecy and details its shattering effects on a real family.

About the Author

Frank Calabrese, Jr., lived in his native Chicago for thirty-nine years. Mentored by his father and brought into the Chicago Outfit at age eighteen, Frank Jr. became a key member of the notorious 26th Street/Chinatown Crew led by Angelo “The Hook” LaPietra and his father, Frank Calabrese, Sr. As a result, Frank Jr. learned firsthand of the widespread organized-crime corruption in the city of Chicago. After going to prison on racketeering charges, Frank turned his life around and, through his testimony in the landmark 2007 Family Secrets trial, helped the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys bring down his father and the Chicago Outfit.

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OPERATION FAMILY SECRETS

By Frank Calabrese, Jr., Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman, and Paul Pompian

Broadway Books

 March 8, 2011 * Pages: 336

Price: $24.99 * ISBN: 978-0-307-71772-6

www.CrownPublishing.com

CONTACT: Anna Mintz

(212) 572-6186

amintz@randomhouse.com

Thought you knew everything about the classic fable? Think again!

MERMAID

A Twist on the Classic Tale

By Carolyn Turgeon

Everyone knows the story of The Little Mermaid, if not through Hans Christian Andersen’s original story, then through Walt Disney’s version. In Carolyn Turgeon’s mystical retelling, MERMAID: A TWIST ON THE CLASSIC TALE (Broadway Paperback Original; March 1, 2011), she spins the original story in a beautifully written, compulsively readable novel that will make you think twice about the fairy tale you heard as a child.

When Lenia, a young mermaid princess, rescues a man from a shipwreck and carries him to shore, her selfless act is witnessed by Princess Margrethe, who is staying in a convent nearby for protection from the war her father is fighting against another kingdom. The shipwrecked young man’s name is Christopher, and in the weeks that he’s nursed back to health at the convent, he and Margrethe fall in love—but it’s not until after he leaves that Margrethe discovers he’s the prince from the kingdom her family is at war with.

Meanwhile, in the sea Lenia is suffering; she fell in love with Christopher in the moments she carried him to shore, so she makes a deal with the sea witch: in exchange for her voice and tongue she receives a potion that changes her into human form. Margrethe comes up with a plan of her own: she’ll be offered in marriage to Christopher, thus uniting the kingdoms and putting an end to the years of conflict between the two lands. But when Margrethe arrives, ready to win and wed her prince, she finds him enraptured with a beautiful woman who looks very familiar. Margrethe is sure she’s seen her before….

With lush imagery and beautiful prose, MERMAID is sure to enchant and delight all readers. Carolyn Turgeon’s evocative writing transports the reader to medieval Scandinavia and seamlessly entwines the stories of the mermaid and the princess, and will keep readers in suspense until the last, captivating pages.

About the Author

Carolyn Turgeon is the author of Rain Village (2006) and Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story (2009), which has been optioned for film. Visit her online at www.carolynturgeon.com.

MERMAID

A Twist on the Classic Tale

By Carolyn Turgeon

Broadway Paperback Original

March 1, 2011 • $14.00

ISBN 978-0-307-58997-2

www.carolynturgeon.com

www.iamamermaid.com

For more information, contact:

Sarah Breivogel, 212-572-2722

sbreivogel@randomhouse.com

From New York Times bestselling novelist CHRIS BOHJALIAN comes a story about shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice.

SECRETS OF EDEN
A Novel by Chris Bohjalian 

“Superb . . . Fans of Bohjalian’s eleven other novels (including Midwives) know to expect the unexpected and, thanks to his creativity and cunning, readers usually get walloped by one heck of a plot twist by the book’s end. In Secrets of Eden, the old saw that none of us knows what really goes on in a house when the shades are drawn rings chillingly true.”
—Carol Memmott, USA Today“Superbly written—vivid and horrifying without being melodramatic . . . A tribute to Bohjalian’s storytelling skill.”  —Boston Globe“The Eden of Chris Bohjalian’s new thriller is Haverill, Vermont, where Stephen Drew is the minister at the Baptist Church. And, as usual, there are more snakes lurking than meet the eye.”
—Amy Virshup, New York Times 

“Suspenseful . . . Searing . . . Bohjalian has written a literary murder mystery that hooks readers early and keeps its secrets until the end.  . . . Bohjalian’s book is about the power of secrets and sacrifice and a warning against jumping to judgment. Those who doubt their faith, he writes, are sometimes the strongest among us.”  —Amy Driscoll, Miami Herald

“Chris Bohjalian has always known how to keep the pages turning. In his latest novel, a small Vermont hamlet has been racked by a well-established couple’s apparent murder-suicide. Bohjalian describes the aftermath of that ruinous night in varied voices, effortlessly slipping into the heads of the shaken local pastor, the no-nonsense deputy state attorney, and the bestselling author whose own past draws her to the scene of the crime. . . . [A] study of guilt and grief.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Bohjalian has built a reputation on his rich characters and immersing readers in diverse subjects. . . . This is a masterfully human and compassionate tale.”  —Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review (see attached for a full list of praise)

With book after book, Chris Bohjalian continues to garner widespread critical acclaim for his realistic and provocative writing. Over the years, he has brought to life midwives, foster children, animal-rights activists, and the homeless—while illuminating the communities they live in and the complicated choices they face. Set in contemporary New England, Bohjalian’s latest novel, SECRETS OF EDEN (Broadway Paperbacks, February 1, 2011), shines the light on the issue of domestic violence. Written in Chris’s elegant, page-turning style, the book builds to the sort of ending that left millions of readers of The Double Bind and Midwives speechless and stunned—and hungry for his next novel.

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While many of Bohjalian’s novels are issue-oriented, SECRETS OF EDEN is the first to emerge from readers’ responses to one of his previous works. The origins of this narrative came from stories Bohjalian heard from women across the country who had read The Double Bind and wanted to know how he had heard their stories—because they had never met. Many identified with the attack on Laurel Estabrook in The Double Bindit felt like what had happened to them. 

SECRETS OF EDEN opens as Alice Hayward’s life ends—but her story begins.
“There,” she says to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a chance meeting with Heather Laurent, the quirky author of wildly successful, inspirational books about angels. 

Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her parents’ murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s only child, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the fifteen-year-old and a shoulder for Stephen—who flees the pulpit to be with her and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.

But then the state’s attorney begins to suspect that Alice’s husband may not have killed himself . . . and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives. Once again, Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems. As one character remarks, “Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume all of our stories are suspect.”

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Bohjalian is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Midwives. His work has been translated into twenty-six languages and twice become movies (Midwives and Past the Bleachers). He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.

SECRETS OF EDEN

by Chris Bohjalian

Broadway Paperbacks • February 1, 2011

Price: $15.00 paper • Pages: 400 • ISBN: 978-0-307-39498-9
www.chrisbohjalian.com

Also available in large print, audio, and electronic versions