“Masterful . . . an epic tale of backbiting, shady deal-making, and greed [that] reads like a John Grisham novel.”—The Wall Street Journal A real-life legal thriller as timeless as a Greek tragedy, tracing the downfall of one of America’s most famous lawyers and exposing the dark side of Southern politics—from the author of When Evil Lived in Laurel Dickie Scruggs was arguably the most successful plaintiff’s lawyer in America. A brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate majority leader Trent Lott, Scruggs made a fortune taking on mass tort lawsuits against Big Tobacco and the asbestos industries. He was hailed by Newsweek as a latter-day Robin Hood and was portrayed in the movie The Insider as a dapper aviator-lawyer. Scruggs’s legal triumphs rewarded him lavishly, and his success emboldened both his career maneuvering and his influence in Southern politics—but at a terrible cost, culminating in his spectacular fall, when he was convicted for conspiring to bribe a Mississippi state judge. Based on extensive interviews, transcripts, and FBI recordings never made public, The Fall of the House of Zeus uncovers the Washington legal games and power politics: the swirl of fixed cases, blocked investigations, judicial tampering, and a zealous prosecution that would eventually ensnare not only Scruggs but his own son, Zach, in the midst of their struggle with insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina damages. Featuring Trent Lott and Jim Biden, brother of then-Senator Joe Biden, in supporting roles, with cameos by John McCain, Al Gore, and other Washington insiders, Curtis Wilkie’s account of this uniquely American tragedy reveals the seedy underbelly of institutional power.

"Kings of Tort chronicles a tale of judicial bribery and political intrigue in Mississippi ... . It features the story of Dickie Scruggs, who was largely credited with bringing down Big Tobacco in the early 1990s. From his ascent to a net worth of nearly a billion dollars to his downfall stemming from his role in improperly influencing two local judges to influence cases involving fee disputes with other lawyers, the book documents how those in Scruggs's own trusted circle of tort barons turned on him and cooperated with federal authorities. It also shows the political influence he wielded with judges, attorneys general, and even his own brother-in-law, former US Senator Trent Lott" --

Please Don't Call Me Hero picks up where Alive Day left off, when a mysterious voice from Chief's dark and covert intelligence past calls him from his daughter's cell phone and sends Chief into combat mode. Do they have her? Can he protect her? Chief knows the voice. So why can't he remember who it is and why, after so many years, is this voice back in his life? This book is dedicated to the families who didn't sign up to go to war, but get to pay the consequences anyway. Follow the journey from Alive Day as Chief comes home, meets his new family and faces a diagnosis he neither understands, nor believes in. PTSD. Chief's story encapsulates what happens when soldiers, in this case a 30 year Veteran of Intelligence Operations, comes home to "Fort Living Room". Chief investigates his own moral wounds, attempts to mitigate his own PTSD and the impact it has on the family he loves so dearly---all the while fighting the agony of spinal injuries, surgical reconstructions and an old enemy from his covert intelligence past. This heart wrenching story takes a deep dive into the realities of war and the impact it has on families. After three decades of Covert Intelligence Operations, Chief is faced with a life altering decision: Does he share his past life with his new wife? Or should he keep her in the dark, risking feelings of hurt and betrayal? This voice on the phone reminiscent of an enemy from his past, propels Chief into a downward spiral to an epiphany that changes his life. Please don't call me Hero will bring you inside the heads and the hearts of America's Veterans as they return from a 20 year Global War on terror and the trials they face as they attempt to come home and acclimate into a society they no longer fit into. This is the compelling story of what families of our Veterans have to deal with and the consequences of going to war!

A haunting and triumphant story of a difficult and keenly felt life, Change Me into Zeus's Daughter is a remarkable literary memoir of resilience, redemption, and growing up in the South. Barbara Robinette Moss was the fourth in a family of eight children raised in the red-clay hills of Alabama. Their wild-eyed, alcoholic father was a charismatic and irrationally proud man who, when sober, captured his children's timid awe, but when (more often) drunk, roused them from bed for severe punishment or bizarre all-night poker games. Their mother was their angel: erudite and stalwart -- her only sin her inability to leave her husband for the sake of the children. Unlike the rest of her family, Barbara bore the scars of this abuse and neglect on the outside as well as the inside. As a result of childhood malnutrition and a complete lack of medical and dental care, the bones in her face grew abnormally ("like a thin pine tree"), and she ended up with what she calls "a twisted, mummy face." Barbara's memoir brings us deep into not only the world of Southern poverty and alcoholic child abuse but also the consciousness of one who is physically frail and awkward, relating how one girl's debilitating sense of her own physical appearance is ultimately saved by her faith in the transformative powers of artistic beauty: painting and writing. From early on and with little encouragement from the world, Barbara embodied the fiery determination to change her fate and achieve a life defined by beauty. At age seven, she announced to the world that she would become an artist -- and so she did. Nightly, she prayed to become attractive, to be changed into "Zeus's daughter," the goddess of beauty, and when her prayers weren't answered, she did it herself, raising the money for years of braces followed by facial surgery. Growing up "so ugly," she felt the family's disgrace all the more acutely, but the result has been a keenly developed appreciation for beauty -- physical and artistic -- the evidence of which can be seen in her writing. Despite the deprivation, the lingering image from this memoir is not of self-pity but of the incredible bond between these eight siblings: the raucous, childish fun they had together, the making-do, and the total devotion to their desperate mother, who absorbed most of the father's blows for them and who plied them with art and poetry in place of balanced meals. Gracefully and intelligently woven in layers of flashback, the persistent strength of Barbara Moss's memoir is itself a testament to the nearly lifesaving appreciation for literature that was her mother's greatest gift to her children.

The first entry in an epic series, set during the fifth-century BC war between Athens and Sparta, finds Plataea resident Nikias dreaming of glory in the Olympic games, only to find himself leading a ragtag band of defenders in the wake of a surprise attack.

Tells the story of Zeus and his battle with his father, Kronos, and the Titans. In graphic novel format.

Documents governmental and political corruption in the Deep South through the story of a daughter who seeks justice when her parents are slain in Mississippi.