John H. Ritter's writing is deeply informed by a rich family background that blended athletes, musicians, and poets. His childhood in the arid hills east of San Diego fostered a powerful imagination and a keen sense of the land's spiritual undercurrents, elements that resonate throughout his work. The early loss of his mother and her musical inclinations instilled in him a lyrical sensibility for capturing the essence of a person. After exploring a musical path inspired by Bob Dylan, Ritter ultimately turned to writing, driven to convey the raw realities and experiences of life with profound emotional depth.
In 1881, a rough-and-tumble California mining town baseball team enlists the help of a quick-witted young orphan and the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid to win a big game against the National League Champion Chicago White Stockings.
Tom Gallagher is in a tight spot. The fate of the Dillontown team rests on the outcome of one baseball game, winner take all. If Tom's team loses, they lose their field too. But how can they possibly win? Just when everything seems hopeless, a mysterious boy named Cruz de la Cruz rides into town and claims to know the secret of hitting. Not to mention the secrets of Dante Del Gato, Dillontown's greatest hitter ever. Since he walked away from the game years ago, Del Gato hasn't spoken a word to anyone. But now he might be Tom's only hope for saving his hometown. From the award-winning author of Over the Wall and Choosing Up Sides comes this imaginative tale of one boy's struggle to preserve the spirit of the game he loves.
As the only maximum-security prison in the state, the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) has housed some of the most violent criminals on the West Coast, including brutal serial killers Charley Panzram in 1915 and Jerry Brudos in 1969. Sixty men have been executed inside OSP. The prison was originally built in Portland in 1851 but moved to Salem 15 years later, after Oregon became a state. From that time forward, the Oregon State Penitentiary grew from 23 prisoners in 1866 to 1,912 by 1992. The penitentiary suffered several serious fires and riots. On March 9, 1968, the most expensive riot ever experienced in the United States flared inside the walls, causing over $2.5 million in damages. Numerous escapes plagued the prison until 1970, when security measures were tightened. The most famous escape involved Harry Tracy and David Merrill in 1902.
A new PI joins an eminent list, bursting with humor, pugnacity, and a leaky moralcode, bent on one-upping San Francisco's finest while wooing a prosecutor turned lover.He muddles through his own hubris and missteps, leaving a trail of bodies andrecrimination. A talented investigator booted from the police force-for knocking askinhead comatose and allegedly battering a girlfriend-Beaupre radiates confidencetinged with arrogance, for which innocents pay dearly. Hired to find the killer in a moldydouble murder, he sniffs out a drug trail, misreads a string of homicides, and not until heand a computer hacker sidekick track down a fugitive in Asia does the scope of a vastcriminal drug and money-laundering conspiracy reveal itself.