Adults

He was a grifter of the first degree, a smooth-talking con artist, a Machiavellian manipulator. He was also a sexual predator, luring women with his aura of fame and power. As grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, D. C. Stephenson’s ambitions did not stop with the organization he shepherded from its Southern roots to dominance in the Midwest. Bullying and buying the loyalty of businessmen, judges, and politicians was not enough for Stephenson.

The American war in Vietnam left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides.

In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belim's personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown Kyiv was gripped by protests and violent suppression. Crimea, where she'd once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentina's garden all became battlegrounds.

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike.

A young woman finds herself in the crosshairs of powerful and very dangerous enemies when she travels to Cairo to uncover the truth about her brother's mysterious death.