*National Bestseller*
New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote’s never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote’s ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his “swans.”

“There are certain women,” Truman Capote wrote, “who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich.” Barbara “Babe” Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister)—they were the toast of midcentury New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. Capote befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and startling way possible.

Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer’s block. While en­joying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel…one based on the re­markable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends.

For years, Capote attempted to write An­swered Prayers, what he believed would have been his magnum opus. But when he eventually published a few chapters in Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his closest fe­male confidantes were laid bare for all to see, and he was banished from their high-society world forever. Laurence Leamer re-creates the lives of these fascinating swans, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

In March 1999, a Palm Beach matron and her socially ambitious husband invited the elite of the island for a dinner dance honoring Prince Edward. Among those dancing to the string orchestra that evening would be those accused of murder and spousal abuse, and others who would suffer fates both unseemly and unspeakable. Among the outer circle there would be murders, suicides, and fatal fires. There would be those who would rise from the dust of obscurity to the heights of wealth and those who would fall to oblivion and disgrace.
Thus begins Madness Under the Royal Palms. Leave it to Laurence Leamer, the bestselling author known for getting the inside story on his elusive subjects, to take us behind the walls of America’s most exclusive enclave of wealth and privilege. Here Leamer tells a braided story involving a socialite determined to make it to the top of Palm Beach society, two infamous murders, and a powerful society reporter. As a backdrop, Leamer tells the story of the clash between old money and new, religion and status, and the love, lust, and fatal hatreds that determine the shape of a fiercely protected society. The cast of characters include trophy wives, trophy husbands, purported gigolos, glamorous widows, a pioneering gay couple, a wildly irreverent event planner, a sociopathic multimillionaire, and an elegant society queen.
For 100 years, Palm Beach has been a fantasyland nurtured by, and maintained for, the megawealthy. In the end, Leamer’s tale of money, murder, and mad pretension reveals a darker strain. Uncovering that strain, the author writes, “turned into as fascinating, in some cases as shocking, and always as unexpected a journey as I have ever taken.”

Where Trump Learned to Rule

To know Donald J. Trump–to understand what makes the forty-fifth president of the United States tick–it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. The vehicle for his triumph is Mar-A-Lago, one of the greatest mansions ever built in the United States. The inside story of how he became King of Palm Beach–and how Palm Beach continues to be his spiritual home even as president–is rollicking, troubling, and told with unrivaled access and understanding by Laurence Leamer.

Never before has an American president overseen a club where access to him can be bought. In Mar-A-Lago, the listener will learn:

* How Donald Trump bought a property now valued by some at as much as $500,000,000 for less than three thousand dollars of his own money.

* Why Trump was blackballed by the WASP grandees of the island and how he got his revenge.

* How Trump joined forces with the National Enquirer, headquartered nearby, and engineered his own divorce.

* How by turning Mar-A-Lago into a private club, Trump was the unlikely man to integrate Palm Beach’s restricted country club scene, and what his real motives were.

* What transpires behind the gates of today’s Mar-A-Lago during “the season,” when President Trump and assorted D.C. power players fly down each weekend.

In addition to copious interviews and reporting from inside Mar-A-Lago, Laurence Leamer brings an acute and unparalleled understanding of the society of Palm Beach, where he has lived for twenty-five years. He has delivered an essential audiobook for understanding Donald Trump’s inner character, in the place where he can most be himself.

From renowned biographer and New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women and The Kennedy Men comes THE SONS OF CAMELOT, the second volume in a multi-generational history bound to be considered an American epic.

Almost a year before publication, THE SONS OF CAMELOT: The Fate of an American Dynasty was already being widely discussed and debated in the media. Based on exclusive interviews with many Kennedy family members, their closest friends and associates, and five years of research, THE SONS OF CAMELOT is neither tabloid fodder nor a sanitized authorized biography but a stunningly revealing, deeply truthful account with intimate new information on every page.

In this outstanding continuation of The Kennedy Men, his powerful American epic of the Kennedy family, Laurence Leamer chronicles the lives of the Kennedy sons and grandsons after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and their struggle to fulfill the family legacy. These lives make for a book of overwhelming drama full of exalted aspirations, notable achievements and the most spectacular mishaps, excesses and tragedies. For the most part, these Kennedy men fell far short of the great vision that Joseph P. Kennedy had for his sons and grandsons. Their lives have been a bewildering juxtaposition of the most notable achievements and the most spectacular failures. There have been needless deaths, crippling accidents, drug addiction, alcoholism and allegations of rape. Their pratfalls, mishaps, excesses and tragedies have been one of the most certain forms of American popular entertainment for the last four decades. Yet among them are those who have helped Americans to have better health care, to sail on clean waters, to raise the rights and lives of those with mental retardation, to assist the poorest of African nations, to enable those with disabilities to lead normal lives, and to give health care givers opportunities.

In Leamer’s passionate narrative, each Kennedy man becomes not the passive victim of the happenstance of birth and upbringing, but a full participant in his own fate. The good that the Kennedy sons have done is amply chronicled, and so is the bad and the tragic. John F. Kennedy Jr.’s life is a thread running through the pages of THE SONS OF CAMELOT. Some may be drawn to the book largely to read the definitive portrait based largely on the full cooperation of his eight closest friends. Others may come intrigued to read the intimate story of Senator Edward Kennedy or the stirring tale of Timmy Kennedy Shriver’s rise to the head of Special Olympics International. But whatever draws the readers, they will read on driven by the powerful dramatic narrative with its impeccably researched details.

Some of these pages are inspiring, some are shocking, but all the pages are truthful. THE SONS OF CAMELOT is a spellbinding history of individuals and a family, a journey of character through time told by a brilliant, masterful writer.

In this triumphant new work already hailed as a powerful American epic, Laurence Leamer chronicles the Kennedy men and their struggle to become the most powerful family in the United States. The Kennedy Men brings to life five bold, ambitious men. The Kennedy patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was one of the richest, strongest men in America’s history. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was a handsome, gregarious youth who died a hero’s death. John F. Kennedy picked up his brother’s fallen mantle and carried it all the way to the White House. Robert F. Kennedy was an attorney general of unprecedented power. Edward M. Kennedy was a fun-loving athlete who reluctantly headed up the hard road to power.

Combining powerful dramatic narrative with impeccably researched detail, The Kennedy Men illuminates their aspirations and love of family, their accomplishments and failures, their heroism and frailty, their loves and passions, and their patriotism and selfishness. Filled with startling revelations, it is a spellbinding personal history of individuals and a journey of character through time.

Audio includes excerpts from President Kennedy’s secret White House recordings of phone conversations and private meetings.

Read by the author.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women chronicles the powerful and spellbinding true story of a brutal race-based killing in 1981 and subsequent trials that undid one of the most pernicious organizations in American history–the Ku Klux Klan.

On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found nineteen-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone. Hays and Knowles abducted him, beat him, cut his throat, and left his body hanging from a tree branch in a racially mixed residential neighborhood.

Arrested, charged, and convicted, Hays was sentenced to death–the first time in more than half a century that the state of Alabama sentenced a white man to death for killing a black man. On behalf of Michael’s grieving mother, Morris Dees, the legendary civil rights lawyer and cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a civil suit against the members of the local Klan unit involved and the UKA, the largest Klan organization. Charging them with conspiracy, Dees put the Klan on trial, resulting in a verdict that would level a deadly blow to its organization.

Based on numerous interviews and extensive archival research, The Lynching brings to life two dramatic trials, during which the Alabama Klan’s motives and philosophy were exposed for the evil they represent. In addition to telling a gripping and consequential story, Laurence Leamer chronicles the KKK and its activities in the second half the twentieth century, and illuminates its lingering effect on race relations in America today.

The Lynching includes sixteen pages of black-and-white photographs.

This nonfiction legal thriller traces the fourteen-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history to justice.

Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines–mines in which scores died unnecessarily.

As Blankenship hobnobbed with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice in France, his company polluted the drinking water of hundreds of citizens; he himself fostered baroque vendettas against anyone who dared challenge his sovereignty over coal country. Just about the only thing that stood in the way of Blankenship’s tyranny over a state and an industry was a pair of odd-couple attorneys, Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley, who undertook a legal quest to bring justice to this corner of America. From the backwoods courtrooms of West Virginia they pursued their case all the way to the US Supreme Court and to a dramatic decision declaring that the wealthy and powerful are not entitled to purchase their own brand of law.

The Price of Justice is a story of corporate corruption so far-reaching and devastating it could have been written a hundred years ago by Ida Tarbell or Lincoln Steffens. And as Laurence Leamer demonstrates in this captivating tale, because it’s true, it’s scarier than fiction.

Every June, in gratitude to their devoted fans, the stars of country music appear at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds to sign autographs for hours and perform during the week called Fan Fair. Though the 1996 Fan Fair was a phenomenal success, for Nashville itself it was also a time of doubt, uncertainty and dramatic change. The week was like a country song: intense, emotional, filled with joy and disappointment, passion and dismay, laughter and tears.

Fan Fair is the setting for this extraordinary inside look at country music. Laurence Leamer had unprecedented access to the stars, managers, songwriters and record company execs of Nashville. Here is the troubled inner life of Garth Brooks, the greatest-selling solo artist of all time. Vince Gill takes a song out of an old leather bag and records a No.1 hit. Reba McEntire angers her fans so much that they tear up her photos, Patty Loveless sings her heart out while her beloved older sister lies dying in a nearby hospital and superstar Shania Twain talks with handicapped Fan Fair goers. Here is Mary Chapin Carpenter singing at the White House instead of Fan Fair. Here are Alan Jackson and Brooks and Dunn at the height of their success juxtaposed against the struggles of Emmylou Harris. The younger stars are portrayed as well: LeAnn Rimes, Mindy McCready, James Bonamy, and BR5-49, all in vivid, novelesque detail. Unknowns, once-knowns, label reps, producers, songwriters and managers are all part of this rich mosaic of Nashville life as it plays out for one incredible week.

To millions of country fans, Three Chords and the Truth will be a book of revelations. Those who have rarely listened to country music will learn why it is the most-listened-to music in the nation, played on more than 2,400 radio stations. And everyone who reads it will never again hear a country song quite the same way.