A young doctor returns to his hometown, determined to find the cause of the deaths of his wife and father. But a series of accidents at the local mine soon has him tracking a bizarre syndrome leading to deformity, madness and death. Joining him is a Boston-based pathologist, herself in town for the funeral of her best friend. With countless lives at stake, the two doctors race against the clock for answers.

In a stunning follow-up to her best-selling debut, Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh2 second novel, BAKER TOWERS, is a compelling story of love and loss in a western Pennsylvania mining town in the years after World War II. Bakerton is a company town, built on coal; a town of church festivals and ethnic neighborhoods, hunters2 breakfasts and firemen2 parades. Its children are raised in company houses - three rooms upstairs, three rooms down. Its ball club...

Irish fiddler Sullivan escapes from prison after being implicated in the loss of Erasmus Kemp's slave ship, only to reencounter his nemesis in a struggle that pits Kemp's desire for wealth against Sullivan's advocacy for the disadvantaged.

In this thrilling new Ralph Compton Western, the fate of a small town rests in the hands of a gambler who's ready to risk more than money. The people of Meridian, Colorado, live and die by coal mining, and when the railroad bypasses them, their livelihood is in peril. However, they discover that for a hefty sum of money they can create a spur line and save the town. A hefty sum that the town does not have. Their only hope is former gambler Asa Newcombe....

"It is 1902, and a bright, inexperienced young man named Isaac Bell, only two years out of his apprenticeship at the Van Dorn Detective Agency, has an urgent message for his boss. Hired to hunt for radical unionist saboteurs in the coal mines, he is witness to a terrible accident that makes him think that something else is going on, that provocateurs are at work and bigger stakes are in play. Little does he know just how big they are. Given exactly...

Now, in this collection of interconnected short stories, Jennifer Haigh returns to the vividly imagined world of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town rocked by decades of painful transition. From its heyday during two World Wars through its slow decline, Bakerton is a town that refuses to give up gracefully, binding--sometimes cruelly - succeeding generations to the place that made them.

After the Alden siblings visit their Great-Aunt Jane's ranch in a mining town, there is a mysterious fire which damages three houses, but Benny's friend Mike notices a strange man in a blue hat in the paper and Mike and Benny suspect he may be the culprit.

"Anna May Jones is the daughter of a coal miner, but a sickly constitution has kept her confined to the house for most of her life. Hoping to improve her daughter's health-and lessen the burden on their family-Anna's mother sends her to live with her Aunt Jinny, a witchy-woman and an Elemental Master, in a holler outside of Ducktown. As she settles into her new life, Anna learns new skills at Aunt Jinny's side and discovers that she, too, has a gift...

"When an explosion kills men and damages the CR Mining Company, the Bodens realize their troubles are not behind them as they thought. Shadowy forces are still working against them. Cole Boden finds himself caught between missing his time back East and all that New Mexico offers. Sure he fights with his siblings now and then, but he does care for them. He enjoys running the mine and, when he's honest, he admits that Melanie Blake captures his interest...

Traces the history of coal, discussing how it has been used in different cultures, how it is mined, what negative effects it has had on people, economics, and the environment, and the role it has played in world history and development.