Ron Hansen

These short stories about Nebraska range from the blue heart of the blizzard of 1888 to the sweltering jungles of war.

Portrays the lives of Jesse James and the man who killed him.

A cunning little girl named Drizzle rescues her town from the bedlam created by the mysterious Shadowmaker, a wizard who makes new shadows for people.

Hitler's Niece tells the story of the intense and disturbing relationship between Adolf Hitler and the daughter of his only half-sister, Angela, a drama that evolves against the backdrop of Hitler's rise to prominence and power from particularly inauspicious beginnings. The story follows Geli from her birth in Linz, Austria, through the years in Berchtesgaden and Munich, to her tragic death in 1932 in Hitler's apartment in Munich. Through the eyes of a favorite niece who has been all but lost to history, we see the frightening rise in prestige and political power of a vain, vulgar, sinister man who thrived on cruelty and hate and would stop at nothing to keep the horror of his inner life hidden from the world.

In this new volume, comprising twelve new stories and seven pieces selected from Nebraska, the subjects of Ron Hansen's scrutiny range from Oscar Wilde to murder to dementia to romance, and display him at his storytelling best. Readers will thrill to Hansen's masterful attention to the smallest and most telling details, even as he plunges straight into the deepest recesses of desire, love, fury, and loss.

The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.

A father journeys to a town in Mexico in an effort to learn what drove his son to commit suicide. The father is Atticus Cody, a rich Colorado rancher whose son adopted a beatnik lifestyle on the Gulf Coast. As he investigates, Cody receives a big surprise.

"In this charming entertainment, mistaken identities, botched schemes, and hilarious misunderstandings all play a part as Parisian sophistication collides with the affability and simple pleasures of the Great Plains." "Touring America was Natalie's idea. But she had not planned on being accompanied on a crosscountry bus by her playboy fiance, Pierre. Nor had they anticipated being stranded in Seldom, Nebraska, population 395.". "But that is exactly what happens to this French couple, and they quickly find themselves being taken in by the obliging citizens of Seldom: Natalie by Mrs. Christiansen, a retired high school teacher who runs a rooming house for women, and Pierre by Owen, a gas station owner and ambitious winemaker in an unlikely part of the world.". "And here also, the separated couple become enchanted by the locals. Natalie is soon being wooed by Dick Tupper, a handsome and honest rancher with a rambling farmhouse and lots of wide open space. Pierre falls quickly for Iona, a beautiful, no-nonsense waitress in the local diner.". "Soon everyone is hatching plots to get what they want: Owen needs help from Pierre's world-class wine business if he is ever going to sell his Nebraska vintage; Pierre wants Iona; Natalie thinks she wants Dick Tupper, but maybe it's Dick who wants Iona, and Natalie who wants Pierre?"--BOOK JACKET.

A tale based on a true story from 1920s Manhattan follows the affair between voluptuous Ruth Snyder and undergarment salesman Judd Gray, whose plot to kill Ruth's husband triggers an explosive police investigation.

For three centuries the people of Alaj and the people of Etolos have been bitter enemies. However, when crippling disasters strike both worlds, each planet becomes the other's hope for survival. With time running out, Captain Picard and his crew are called to negotiate a peaceful settlement and begin rescue efforts. But some factions would rather see both planets perish and will stop at nothing to prevent peace. Soon the U.S.S. EnterpriseTM crew is caught up in a web of intrigue and terrorism that culminates with an act of ultimate revenge against both peoples -- revenge that will mean the destruction of two worlds and the U.S.S. Enterprise.