Motor City Burning

From the criticallyacclaimed author of Motor City, Detroit comes alive in a powerful andthrilling novel set amid the chaos of the 1960s race riots and the serenity of baseball’s opening day. Willie Bledsoe, once an idealistic young black activist, isnow a burnt-out case. After leaving a snug berth at Tuskegee Institute to jointhe Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he has become bitterlydisillusioned with the civil rights movement and its leaders. He returns hometo Alabama to try to write a memoir about his time in the cultural whirlwind,but the words fail to come. The surprise return of his Vietnam veteran brother in thespring of 1967 gives Willie a chance to drive a load of smuggled guns to theMotor City—and make enough money to jump-start his stalled dream of writing his memoir. There, at Tiger Stadium on Opening Day of the 1968 baseballseason—postponed two days in deference to the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.—Willie learns some terrifying news: the Detroit police are stillinvestigating the last unsolved murder from the bloody, apocalyptic riot of theprevious summer, and a white cop named Frank Doyle will not rest until the caseis solved. And Willie is his prime suspect. Bill Morris’ rich and thrilling novel sets Doyle’s hunt amidthe history of one of America’s most tortured and fascinating cities, as Doyleand Willie struggle with Detroit’s deep racial divide, with revenge andforgiveness, and with the realization that justice is rarely attainable—andrarely just.