Visit A Mysterious Islet with Stephen King

Duma Key

By Stephen King

Scribner, $28

Minnesotan Edgar Fremantle, a self-made multimillionaire contractor, has everything: a beautiful young wife, two wonderful grown daughters and $40 million in the bank. Then, one day, he loses almost all when a construction site accident crushes his skull, severs an arm and breaks his hip and numerous ribs.

As he slowly recovers, he can’t control his rage at not being able to find words to express himself. At one point, he stabs his wife with a plastic knife and later tries to strangle her. Unable to cope, she divorces him.

When his doctor suggests “a geographic cure,” he moves to a rented house on Duma Key, a beautiful but undeveloped beach property on the Florida coast. There he develops an uncanny ability to paint pictures that can change, for better or worse, the people he paints. With the aid of Wireman, his new best friend, Edgar discovers the frightening secrets of Duma Key and comes face to face with classic King terror.

Historic Photos of New Orleans

By Melissa Lee Smith

Turner Publishing Company, $39.95

Smith has gathered together a fabulous collection of photos from many sources and added concise captions to identify and explain each. Beginning with a two-page spread of a massive Mardi Gras crowd on Canal Street in the late ’60s, she takes us on a nostalgic trip back to a time when the street was jammed with streetcars and horses pulling buggies.

We see the French Market at its peak and meet the 1905 Tulane football team, all seven players. There are photos of a 1901 Rex stand-in (customary then to protect the ruler’s true identity until Fat Tuesday), as well as many legendary politicians and civic leaders.

This is absolutely absorbing Crescent City history in pictures.

The Crescent City Lynchings

By Tom Smith

The Lyons Press $24.95

When popular New Orleans’ police chief David Hennessy was shot from ambush on the night of Oct. 15, 1890, citizens went on a rampage. After the chief, with his dying breath, accused unnamed Italian immigrants as his assailants, police rounded up 19 Italians and charged them with his murder. But after the first nine were tried and acquitted, the mayor appointed a committee of 50 to investigate charges of jury tampering.

The committee, instead, incited a mob to rush the jail, shooting several prisoners attempting to hide or escape, captured and lynched the others. It was a horrifying night that terrified innocent Italians and so angered the Italian Government as to threaten war against the U.S.

Smith has produced a captivating picture of old New Orleans at its worst. Fascinating as the best fiction, yet all true.

American Ruins

Photography by Arthur Drooker

Merrell Publishing $45

Award-winning Drooker shot these extraordinary pictures in an infrared format to produce these luminous images of Harpers Ferry and the Bethlehem Steel Mill. The four photos of the Cottage in East Baton Rouge remind us of what was once a stately mansion.

In California, Alcatraz Prison and the Mission San Juan Capistrano are still toured by visitors.

The superb foreword by noted historian Douglas Brinkley and essays by art historian Christopher Woodward provide excellent details of “the historical, geographical, and architectural significance of each site.”