Showing results by author "Julia Keller" in All Categories

High summer in Acker's Gap, West Virginia - but no one's enjoying the rugged natural landscape. Not while a killer stalks the small town and its hard-luck inhabitants. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and Sheriff Nick Fogelsong are stymied by a murderer who seems to come and go like smoke on the mountain. At the same time, Bell must deal with the return from prison of her sister, Shirley - who, like Bell, carries the indelible scars of a savage past.

Phone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you're the county's prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either. So when Bell Elkins picks up the phone, she already knows she won't like what she's about to hear, but she's still not prepared for this: sixteen-year-old Lucinda Trimble's body has been found at the bottom of Bitter River. And Lucinda didn't drown - she was dead before her body ever hit the water. With a case like that, Bell knows the coming weeks are going to be tough. But that's not all Bell is coping with these days.

What’s happening in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker’s Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow?

Simone Biles quit the Olympics. Harry and Meghan quit The Firm. Millions of people have quit their jobs, seeking happiness and defining success on their own terms. Is it a mistake? As Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Julia Keller found out, it’s not. And, in fact, it might even save your life. Diving into the neuroscience of nope and the cultural messages that drive our reluctance to throw in the towel, Keller dismantles the myth of perseverance once and for all. Because grit isn't always great. Sticking it out doesn't always pay off. And quitting can be an unexpected act of self-love.

In a radiant world of endless summer, the Intercept keeps the peace. Violet Crowley, the 16-year-old daughter of New Earth’s Founding Father, has spent her life in comfort and safety. Her days are easy thanks to the Intercept, a crime-prevention device that monitors emotion. But when her long-time crush, Danny Mayhew, gets into a dangerous altercation on Old Earth, Violet launches a secret investigation to find out what he's hiding. An investigation that will lead her to question everything she's ever known about Danny, her father, and the power of the Intercept.

How far would you go for someone you love? Would you die? Would you kill? After a three-year prison sentence, Bell Elkins is back in Acker's Gap. And she finds herself in the white-hot center of a complicated and deadly case - even as she comes to terms with one last, devastating secret of her own.

Deep in the woods just outside Acker's Gap, West Virginia, rises a ragged chunk of what was once a high stone wall. This is all that remains of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital for the poor that burned to the ground decades ago. And it is here that Bell Elkins - prosecutor turned private investigator - makes a grim discovery while searching for a missing teenager: A dead body, marred by a ghastly wound that can only mean murder.

The first drug overdose comes just after midnight, when a young woman dies on the dirty floor of a gas station bathroom. To the people of the small town of Acker's Gap, West Virginia, it is just another tragedy. It is sad - but these days, depressingly familiar. But then there is another overdose. And another. And another. Prosecutor Bell Elkins soon realizes that her Appalachian hometown is facing its starkest challenge yet: a day of constant heroin overdoses from a batch tainted with a lethal tranquilizer.

Royce Dillard doesn't remember much about the day his parents - and one hundred and twenty-three other souls - died in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. He was only two years old when he was ripped from his mother's arms. But now Dillard, who lives off the grid with only a passel of dogs for company, is fighting for his life one more time: He's on trial for murder. Prosecutor Bell Elkins faces her toughest challenge yet in this haunting story of vengeance, greed, and the fierce struggle for social justice.

Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests.

From the small towns of Appalachia they came, the young men who joined the fight for liberty in World War II. Now they are elderly, and some of them - like Harmon Strayer, father of prosecutor Bell Elkins's former law school classmate - suffer from Alzheimer's. When Harmon dies in an Alzheimer's care facility from what appear to be natural causes, Bell confronts a mystery that brims with questions about memory, grief and the lethal cost of burying the past.

Destruye el mito de la meritocracia y aprende a renunciar a lo que te daña. «Julia Keller ofrece un cambio de perspectiva en un mundo que nos dice que hagamos —y aguantemos— más. Este libro celebra a las personas que aprenden sus límites, se mantienen firmes en ellos, y forjan nuevos caminos cuando las viejas y agotadoras formas de ser les han fallado». Doctor Devon Price. Nos han inculcado tanto la cultura del esfuerzo que la renuncia se vive como un fracaso y una falta de carácter. Esa visión no solo nos lastima, sino que nos parece intocable.

New Earth, 2296. Two years after the destruction of a universal surveillance system called the Intercept, New Earth struggles to keep crime under control. The citizens are free but not protected.

In Quitting, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Julia Keller dives deep into 'the neuroscience of nope,' as well as the social phenomena that drive our reluctance to throw in the towel, to dismantle the myth of perseverance once and for all. Combining reportage from the front lines of neuroscience, pop culture and concrete practical advice for not just why but when and how to quit, Keller gives listeners permission to pull the plug, live with intention and shape their own lives without fear and pressure—at work, at home, in our relationships, and beyond.

The second in the Bell Elkins crime series from Pulitzer-prize winner Julia Keller. For fans of Linwood Barclay, Dennis Lehane and Henning Mankell. In a small town, everybody is next of kin to everybody else. When a local high-school student - sixteen, promising and pregnant - is found murdered in a car in Bitter River, the hunt is on to find her killer.

Karin Slaughter has called Julia Keller 'a rare talent', and Dennis Lehane has praised her 'remarkable writing'. Now Bell Elkins returns - a high-profile development has been green-lit in Acker's Gap, but with one resident refusing to sell his land, tensions are running high, and when a body is found it's up to Bell to find out the truth.

Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, visitors see only its stunning natural beauty. But for those living there it's a different story. The mountain roads harbour secret places, perfect for making the prescription drugs that tempt its desperately poor. Bell Elkins left as a broken teenager, savaged by a past she couldn't forget. But, as prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, Bell is back and determined to help clean up the only home she has ever known.