Bøger af Michael Panno

Illinois, winter, 1958. Eleven-year-old Michael Carmello lives with his parents and five siblings in a small house in Hardscrabble, Illinois. His father ekes out a living driving a cab, while his mother works part time at the local hospital. Michael wants to tryout for Little League in the spring, and dreams of someday being a Major League ball player. But dreams don't find a lot of support in Hardscrabble; that is, not until Michael meets Cornelius (Neely) Brown, a former pitcher with the Negro League, and a terminal patient at the hospital. Down Clark Street, Michael Panno's latest novel, takes us on a young boy's heartwarming journey from childhood into adolescence as he learns a little about baseball and a lot about life.

Summer of '92. The Rodney King riots are over in L.A. and the rebuilding has begun. The President is about to make a visit to observe the progress (and to pick up a few political points), and the People's Triumphant Army (PTA), a ragtag group of homegrown terrorists led by former fashion model, Wanda Blade, will be waiting. Throw in a Mexican Coyote, a crooked INS officer, a housepainter with a frightening vision and an acrophobic Secret-Service agent and you get just a hint of the darkly funny antics of Shocks and Bar-B-Q, the latest novel from the author of Animal Rites.

Frank Noble is a Viet Nam vet and a retired Secret Service agent, living in a stone cabin in the Angeles National Forest, above Los Angeles. A family of bears live close by and Frank takes joy in observing and interacting with them. This all changes when two poachers kill two of the bears and cut out their bladders and remove their paws to sell on the black market. Little did the poachers know, they picked the wrong bears. Frank enlists the help of Marcell, a dwarf and former Circus Performer with his own dark past, who now lives in a cabin close to Frank, and the two of them set out for revenge. It is a journey that leads them into the seedy underworld of Animal parts, child pornography and prostitution.