Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

Jon Krakauer

Nonfiction / Travel / Nature

From bestselling author Jon Krakauer, a stark, powerful, meticulously reported narrative about a series of sexual assaults at the University of Montana ­— stories that illuminate the human drama behind the national plague of campus rape Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team — the Grizzlies — with a rabid fan base. The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical. A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault. Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active; if she had been drinking prior to the assault — and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. The vanishingly small but highly publicized incidents of false accusations are often used to dismiss her claims in the press. If the case goes to trial, the woman’s entire personal life becomes fair game for defense attorneys. This brutal reality goes a long way towards explaining why acquaintance rape is the most underreported crime in America. In addition to physical trauma, its victims often suffer devastating psychological damage that leads to feelings of shame, emotional paralysis and stigmatization. PTSD rates for rape victims are estimated to be 50%, higher than soldiers returning from war. In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula — the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, non-criminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces. The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies’ star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community. Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken. 
Read online
  • 635
Mr Dog and a Deer Friend

Mr Dog and a Deer Friend

Ben Fogle

Travel / Biography / Nature

A brand new young fiction series by TV broadcaster and intrepid explorer Ben Fogle, inspired by his real-life animal experiences... Co-written with best-selling children's author Steve Cole When Mr Dog meets a fawn whose forest home is in danger, he know he needs to help... quickly.As Mr Dog joins the search for the fawn's missing mother, trouble lies ahead for the whole herd. Mr Dog has a plan, though, that might just keep them all out of danger...
Read online
  • 634
Reliquary

Reliquary

Bull Garlington

Travel / Humor and Comedy / Memoir

It starts with a single bite, a morsel, a taste and then it builds to a dish, to a meal, to a banquet.Who is Spider Latham? Think John Wayne meets Miss Marple. When Spider is hired to do some private detective work for the Red Pueblo Museum, he doesn’t suspect it will cause a rift between his wife, Laurie, and himself. Museum Director Martin Taylor is desperate, and his son, Matt, is angry. Some wicked, faceless organization is bent on destroying the museum financially, and it’s about to succeed. After Spider arrives, the situation turns deadly when a killer uses an Anasazi ax from the museum’s tourist shop to bash in the skull of a charismatic playboy. Everyone has a motive for the murder, even Laurie’s handsome, rich relative who cozies up to her every chance he gets. The local Barney-Fife-type deputy arrests volatile Matt Taylor, whose only real crime is putting his trust in the wrong woman. Can Spider untangle the web of secrecy and lies surrounding the museum and save its Anasazi treasures before the Taylors lose it all? And in the process, can he save his own marriage? A cozy mystery with an edge, Trouble at the Red Pueblo is Book #1 in Liz Adair’s Spider Latham Red Rock Mystery Series set in Southern Utah’s spectacularly scenic canyon country. From InD’Tale Magazine (four-and-a-half star review): Spider Latham has a new fan! This scrumptious story by Liz Adair is a marvelously easy to read mystery, seasoned with rich descriptions of the red rock area of Arizona and Utah. The author draws in the reader with uniquely realistic story lines involving existing businesses and landmarks in the area. The characters are complex—so fleshed out and genuine, one would expect to see them firmly ensconced at the Museum, the local diner, or patrolling the area in an orange Yugo with flames painted on it. Readers will love the bantering dialogue between Spider and Laurie, and they’ll pull for the Stetson wearing cowboy deputy from Nevada. Well written, well researched, and well done, Ms. Adair!
Read online
  • 634
Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 2

Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 2

R. Austin Freeman

Mystery & Thrillers / Travel / Fiction

VOLUME 2The Singing Bone (1912) aka The Adventures of Dr ThorndykeIn the topsy turvy world of The Singing Bone, Richard Austin Freeman presents us with a solution. The reader is asked to deduce how different mysteries were solved rather than whodunit. Freeman introduces five distinct tales of intrigue, romance, mutiny and murder. The ingenuity of these detective stories lies in their fresh and original approach in what amounts to a tantalising read.     The Case of Oscar Brodski    A Case of Premeditation    The Echo of a Mutiny    A Wastrel's Romance    The Old LagA Silent Witness (1914)On a wet and windy silent night in the sleeping city of London, the body of a man is found sprawled across Millfield Lane. So begins an ill wind and the puzzle of an intriguing stranger in this enchanting Dr Thorndyke mystery.The Great Portrait Mystery and Other Stories (1918)The National Portrait Gallery is the opening setting for this delightful mystery of theft and fraud. A painter copies diligently from a watercolour one morning when an enigmatic musician suddenly appears and causes mayhem with his musical interludes, hopping from one picture to another and giving a remarkable rendition of different songs. But while the curator follows him around trying to call a halt to the musical spectacle, the copyist replaces a watercolour masterpiece and makes an infamous escape. Who is the mysterious musician? Who is the mysterious copyist? And what has happened to the priceless watercolour?     The Great Portrait Mystery    The Bronze Parrot    Powder Blue and Hawthorn    The Attorney's Conscience    The Luck of Barnabas Mudge    The Missing Mortgagee    Percival Bland's ProxyHelen Vardon's Confession (1922)Through the open door of a library, Helen Vardon hears an argument that changes her life forever. Helen's father and a man called Otway argue over missing funds in a trust one night. Otway proposes a marriage between him and Helen in exchange for his cooperation and silence. What transpires is a captivating tale of blackmail, fraud and death. Dr Thorndyke is left to piece together the clues in this enticing mystery. 
Read online
  • 633
Sicilian Carousel

Sicilian Carousel

Lawrence Durrell

Literature & Fiction / Travel / Memoir

Although Durrell spent much of his life beside the Mediterranean, he wrote relatively little about Italy; it was always somewhere that he was passing through on the way to somewhere else. Sicilian Carousel is his only piece of extended writing on the country and, naturally enough for the islomaniac Durrell, it focuses on one of Italy's islands. Sicilian Carousel came relatively late in Durrell's career, and is based around a slightly fictionalized bus tour of the island.
Read online
  • 632
Bad at Love

Bad at Love

Karina Halle

Romance / Travel / Chick Lit

She's bad at love, but he's even worse... Marina is hot, blonde, and wickedly smart, but when it comes to men? She's hopeless. Between her quirks and her lack of filter, there isn't a man in Los Angeles that will stick around after the third date. Her handsome, charming friend Lazarus has the opposite problem. Everyone wants to be the sexy Brit's girlfriend, but he gets bored and moves on quickly. There's only one way to figure out why neither of them has cracked this love thing-- they'll date each other. On paper, it's the perfect experiment. But in reality, things between Marina and Laz get complicated quickly. They might be bad at love, but they are even worse at being friends. Note: This full-length romance is a complete standalone with no relation to any other books and was inspired by the Halsey song "Bad at Love." It does contain ample amounts of profanity, filthy language and graphic sex scenes. Sensitive readers should be advised.
Read online
  • 631
Laura's Shorts

Laura's Shorts

Laura Rittenhouse

Literature & Fiction / Travel

Laura's Shorts is a random collection of unrelated short stories. Many were prepared in response to prompts or criteria of competitions, all were prepared for the sheer joy of storytelling.Sam wins the lottery and asks Natali to marry him and run away to see all the hidden beauty the world has to offer. He wants her by his side through all the great and secret adventures he can dream of with his new wealth. She denies his proposal so he goes it alone, only to return fifty years later. that's when the story truly begins.
Read online
  • 630
The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War

The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War

Tim Butcher

Nonfiction / Travel

On a summer morning in Sarajevo almost a hundred years ago, a teenager took a pistol out of his pocket and fired not just the opening rounds of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history. By killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gavrilo Princip, started a cycle of events that would leave 15 million dead from fighting between 1914 and 1918 and proved fatal for empires and a way of ruling that had held for centuries. The Trigger tells the story of a young man who changed the world forever. It focuses on the drama of the incident itself by following Prinip’s journey. By retracing his steps from the feudal frontier village of his birth, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding of Princip— the person and the place that shaped him—and makes discoveries about him that have eluded historians for a hundred years. Traveling through the Balkans on Princip’s trail, and drawing on his own experiences there as a war reporter during the 1990s, Butcher unravels this complex part of the world and its conflicts, and shows how the events that were sparked that day in June 1914 still have influence today. Published for the centenary of the assassination, The Trigger is a rich and timely work, part travelogue, part reportage, and part history.
Read online
  • 630
Missionary

Missionary

Bull Garlington

Travel / Humor and Comedy / Memoir

A tone deaf deep space astronomer discovers a catchy tune from beyond our galaxy and destroys the world.Sarah Jane had been so excited to be accepted on the team of doctors at the prestigious clinic, The Center. It was exciting and exhilarating work. It did not hurt that she got to work with brilliant people all day, everyday. Until disaster struck and suddenly everything she had was in danger of being lost.Would she turn the hands of time if she could? Would she choose differently if she did? Would she choose her old life over the new one that was unfolding?Sometimes, life forces us to grow way bigger than our shells. Sarah Jane had to.(This is a stand-alone novel but readers will understand the story a lot better if they read my book, 'Transgender J' first. Transgender J is free on Smashwords.)This book was formerly titled, Undead - Sarah Jane.
Read online
  • 624
Bold Tricks

Bold Tricks

Karina Halle

Romance / Travel / Chick Lit

With more lives at stake and games in motion, Ellie, Camden and Javier form an uneasy alliance that will take them from the treacherous streets of inner-city Mexico to the wilds of the Honduran jungles in order to find their freedom. But with liberty just on the horizon, the cost might come at their own redemption.
Read online
  • 615
Boots

Boots

Phillip Donnelly

Literature & Fiction / Travel

From a rat’s eye view of the London blitz to a cadaver with a complaint about the size of her coffin, this collection of short stories brings us into a comically surreal world that will leave you questioning your ability to tell up from down.From a rat’s eye view of the London blitz to a cadaver with a complaint about the size of her coffin, this collection of short stories brings us into a comically surreal world that will leave you questioning your ability to tell up from down.What the characters in these stories have in common is their passage through a moment of crisis: the teacher who must face down an aggressive student in the award winning Interactive Classroom; Shep, the sheep-turned sheep dog, who wants to turn back the clock and become a sheep again; or the paranoid David Vincent, who is convinced the office he works in is being infiltrated by alien imposters who are now coming for him. In terms of genre, the stories range from the post-modernist science fiction of 6 Hits from the Safe Zone, The Mission and Debt, Death and Deletion to the more macabre dark humour of Guest in the Attic and The Undertaker’s Complaint. Historical fiction is also included, with an alcoholic Churchill burping his way to greatness. Some works place comedy to the fore, such as The Interactive Sexual Attraction Device.If we tire of fiction, travel writing brings us back to the real world, in which the author offers his unique perspective on China, India and Lebanon. The Boots anthology finishes with samples from the author’s novels, converted into short stories.All the pieces in this collection have been published in various locations and are now brought together in one collection. Take your psyche for a walk with Boots.
Read online
  • 614
A Cry from the Far Middle

A Cry from the Far Middle

P. J. O'Rourke

Fiction / Humor / Travel

In a time of chaos, the #1 New York Times-bestselling political humorist asks his fellow Americans to take it down a notch. Is there an upside to being woke (and unable to get back to sleep)? If we license dentists, why don't we license politicians? Is your juicer sending fake news to your FitBit about what's in your refrigerator? The legendary P.J. O'Rourke addresses these questions and more in this hilarious new collection of essays about our nation's propensity for anger and perplexity, which includes such gems as "An Inaugural Address I'd Like to Hear" (Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how I can get the hell out of here) and "Sympathy vs. Empathy," which contemplates whether it's better to hold people's hands or bust into their heads. Also included is a handy quiz to find out where you stand on the Coastals-vs.-Heartlanders spectrum. From the author of Parliament of Whores, None of My Business, and other modern...
Read online
  • 612
183