Crime, pets, politics & more: 5 new books by Cape Cod authors
True crime from the near past and fictionalized crime from the far past are among the topics of this latest group of new books by authors living on or connected to Cape Cod. If you're looking for something lighter, the writers, artists and photographers from the Sandwich Arts Alliance share their looks at pets and wildlife in a new book.
A physician's novel explores themes of post-traumatic stress disorder and its effects. And if it feels like little Massachusetts has had an outsized involvement in and effect on national politics, a new compilation of essays by experts explores what's really happened there on positive and negative sides of important issues.
So if you're looking for something new to read, take a look:
“Riding With Evil: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang,” by Ken Croke and Dave Wedge (Harper Collins/Williams Morrow, 2022)
This new true-crime thriller tells the story of Croke, a retired Boston ATF agent who is the only police officer to ever infiltrate the infamous Pagan motorcycle gang. For two years, Croke was undercover with the drug-dealing, white supremacist biker gang — witnessing assaults, drug deals and a blood feud with the Hell’s Angels — while his family lived in suburban Massachusetts. This book written with bestselling co-author Wedge, who has visited or lived on Cape Cod for much of his life, is the first public account of the work that took down more than 20 Pagans in a 2011 sweeping federal racketeering case and led to dozens more arrests. Wedge has co-authored five books with Hyannis native Casey Sherman, including “Hunting Whitey,” “Boston Strong” and “12” about Tom Brady. Wedge is scheduled to do a book-signing of "Riding With Evil" from 10 a.m. to noon Aug. 11 at Brewster Bookstore, 2648 Main St.
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“Fur, Feathers, Scales and Tails,” created and published by members of the Sandwich Arts Alliance (2022)
Members of the Sandwich Arts Alliance recently combined their talents to create this compilation of writing, artwork and photography that celebrates the animals that affect our lives, both pets and wildlife. “Authors and performers wrote pieces about their interactions, and our visual artist filled the pages with colorful portraits and scenes,” explains Jana Dillon Hamby, coordinator of Literary Arts for the alliance. “Joyful and sad, funny and amazed — all the range of human and animal emotions fill the pages.” The book is dedicated to both pets, “those beloved friends … and members of the family,” and “our fascinating wild neighbors.” While written by adults for adults, says Carolyn LeCompte, a member of both the alliance’s Visual Arts and Literary Arts groups, the stories and pictures are for all ages.
“Marriette,” by Robert Ritchey (independently published, 2021)
This first novel for Ritchey, a Cape Cod Hospital physician for 20 years, follows a woman who leaves her anthropology studies in West Ghana to return to the United States, but is dogged by post-traumatic stress that changes her life and the lives of those around her. Ritchey describes the main characters as “two determined, forward-thinking women, a generation apart in age” and the plot around them deals not only with PTSD, but its treatment, personal loss and recovery, an interracial child and marriage. In a foreword, Ritchey says one driver of this book was his time, both as an active-duty army physician and a civilian, listening to the accounts of combat veterans who “revealed not so much their stories of war, but the stories of their troubled lives after returning home.”
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“The Plot to Kill Lenin: With Somerset Maugham in Russia,” by Joseph Theroux (Kilauea Publications, 2022)
This story by historian and novelist Theroux, who lives in West Dennis, is set in 1917 Petrograd (a renamed St. Petersburg) and follows secret agents Lloyd Osbourne and Somerset Maugham, who are trying to locate a stolen Imperial jewel and have been drawn into an assassination plot against revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. The two encounter key people of the time: young poet Vladimir Nabokov, novelists Hugh Walpole and Ayn Rand, the assassin Boris Savinkov, and Thomas Masaryk, the future president of Czechoslovakia. Past books for Theroux, a former teacher in Samoa and Hawaii, include detective novels “The Sussex War,” “The Devil’s Throat” and “Honolulu Dragon.”
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"The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism: Reputation Meets Reality," by Jerold Duquette and Erin O’Brien (UMass Press, 2022)
How has Massachusetts contributed to the nation’s political history? This new book co-written and co-edited by O’Brien, a Cape native and part-time resident, explores both the landmark moves forward and the criticized troubles related to how “Massachusetts politics has exerted an outsized pull on the national stage.” Topics covered include national candidates from the state; abolitionist history; Massachusetts' status as a policy leader on health care, gay marriage and transgender rights; the state’s busing crisis; high levels of economic inequality; de facto segregation; and mixed support for undocumented immigrants. Featured are essays from O’Brien, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston; Duquette, associate professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University; and MassPoliticsProfs contributors who include Maurice T. Cunningham, Lawrence Friedman, Shannon Jenkins, Luis F. Jiménez and Peter Ubertaccio.
Are you a Cape Cod author with a new book? Contact Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com to be considered for future book columns.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod books, authors: Animal, crime, politics, PTSD, history, pets
