{"product_id":"no-ordinary-bird-drug-smuggling-a-plane-crash-and-a-daughters-quest-for-the-truth-isbn-9780358650270","title":"No Ordinary Bird: Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the vein of Small Fry or Priestdaddy, No Ordinary Bird is a compelling father-daughter story that reads like true crime, haunted by a question the dashing and mysterious Lamar Chester had always taught his daughter to ask: “How do you tell the good guys from the bad?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArtis was five when a plane crash killed her beloved father. For years, it was simply called “the accident.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut many things weren’t getting discussed. Like Lamar himself—a swashbuckling, larger-than-life pilot, a doting father and husband, and the most popular farmer in Georgia. Or that the IRS had immediately taken everything: the chickens, the airplanes, the islands in the Bahamas. . . . Afterwards, Artis and her mother broke contact with everyone and fled, rebuilding from the bottom up as if Lamar’s big, wild life had never happened.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYears later, a friend tells Artis Lamar’s plane was sabotaged: her father had been one of the biggest drug smugglers in Miami in the 1970s. At the time of his death, he was about to testify in a trial that had swept up everyone from the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, to a US district attorney, to the Colombian drug cartels. But the deeper Artis digs, the more unexpected the story becomes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond the dramatic betrayals, dangerous drug lords, and geopolitical intrigue is the beating heart of this riveting memoir: a daughter’s grappling with a dark legacy and her memories of the father who had been the light of her life. Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and is there a difference at all?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Daughter's Quest for the Truth:\u003c\/b\u003e Thirty years after surviving the crash that killed her father, Artis Henderson dives into a hidden past of secret islands, offshore accounts, and government informants to uncover who Lamar Chester truly was.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003ePlane Crash Mystery:\u003c\/b\u003e The official report called it an accident. But with whispers of sabotage and a missing bolt, was the crash that killed a charismatic smuggler a tragic mistake or a professional hit?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Smuggler's Paradise:\u003c\/b\u003e Explore the hedonistic, high-stakes world of 1970s and ’80s Miami, from secret runways in the Bahamas to payoff parties at the notorious Mutiny Club.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Question of Conspiracy:\u003c\/b\u003e With connections to the Iran-Contra affair, Operation Lone Star, and the CIA, was Lamar Chester a simple criminal, or a covert operative the government decided was disposable?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\"Best Book of the Year\" * A \u003ci\u003eBookRiot\u003c\/i\u003e \"Best New Nonfiction\" * An\u003ci\u003e Oprah Daily\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePeople \u003c\/i\u003e\"Best Book\" * A \u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eColumbia Magazine \u003c\/i\u003e\"New Book\" * A \u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e \"Best Book of the Week\" A \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \"Book We Read This Week\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This deeply felt portrait is as riveting as it is moving.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Meticulously researched and painfully honest, this memoir expertly situates a single extraordinary life within the larger historical context of governmental corruption and the international drug trade (without giving anything away, we’ll just say that this story goes \u003cem\u003eall \u003c\/em\u003ethe way to the top). Part true-crime thriller, part tender elegy, and entirely unforgettable.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOprah Daily\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s rare to read a memoir so full of both heart and adventure, one so grounded in a daughter’s deeply relatable search for family and at the same time propelled by such high drama and international intrigue. Artis Henderson’s gorgeous search for the truth as she tries to solve the mystery of her father’s life and death reads like true crime, with the twists and turns of the best thrillers.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSusannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire, The Great Pretender, and The Acid Queen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Journalist and memoirist Henderson (\u003cem\u003eUnremarried Widow\u003c\/em\u003e) delivers a heart-rending account of her father’s death in an airplane crash.... Henderson marries her solid journalistic chops with diaristic emotional immediacy, infusing a stranger-than-fiction crime story with deeply personal stakes. It’s a unique, exciting, and affecting memoir.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Wry, sharp, and deeply personal.... (\u003cem\u003eNo Ordinary Bird\u003c\/em\u003e) is a daughter’s raw, immersive journey through the myth and memory of a larger-than-life man and the fallout of his choices. The memoir is like \u003cem\u003eCatch Me If You Can\u003c\/em\u003e crossed with \u003cem\u003eNarcos...\u003c\/em\u003eExquisitely written, fiercely researched, and emotionally fearless, this rare memoir is not to be missed.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Artis Henderson’s unflinching new book is impossible to classify in the best possible way. It is both the story of a journalist’s hunt for the truth and a daughter‘s longing; an American legacy of government interference on the grandest scale and the most intimate aspirations for a better life. It simmers with rage, hums with curiosity, shimmers with wonder and adventure. It’s also just a really good story, beautifully told, layer after layer.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJulia Cooke is the author of Come Fly the World and Starry and Restless\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Modest and restrained storytelling that packs an unexpected punch.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A searing, moving memoir… \u003cem\u003eNo Ordinary Bird\u003c\/em\u003e is a loving portrait that benefits from the nuance of understanding that, as Lamar liked to say, ‘you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.’ It is both research-based inquiry—involving travel to Miami, Georgia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Iran, and beyond—and also a memoir of family, love, and risk. Henderson excels at the subtlety required by such a story, and her telling is intriguing, painful, and cathartic. Shelf Talker: A daughter's study of her father's life and death artfully reveals intrigue, astonishing slices of world history, and a loving but flawed man.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Mesmerizing....(an) eloquent record of grief. 'I want to resent him for creating a life that put both strangers and the people he loved in danger,' she writes. 'But I can't make myself feel any of that. All I feel is an overwhelming sense of loss.' Thanks to the force of her narration, readers will feel it too - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I wish Artis’s father lived long enough to learn that his daughter became a meticulous reporter with a flair for action packed prose. (Though he’d probably be reading her from prison.) Lamar Chester is both a morally ambiguous criminal and doting father who Artis describes with the complexities of a character straight out of a John D. McDonald novel. Except his incredible story is true.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGriffin Dunne, author of The Afternoon Club\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“With twists and turns that feel propulsively surreal, Artis’s story reads like fiction. But behind it all is a steady pulse, the heartbeat of a daughter in search of the truth.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnnabelle Tometich, Southern Book Prize winning author of The Mango Tree\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“There are many wonderful memoirs lining the shelves of bookstores today, but how many of these true stories can be deemed so powerful as to move a reader to tears? Joan Didion's \u003cem\u003eThe Year of Magical Thinking\u003c\/em\u003e is one that comes to mind, and, more recently, \u003cem\u003eWave\u003c\/em\u003e, Sonali Deraniyagala's memoir of immense loss in the 2004 tsunami. Artis Henderson's stunning debut memoir, \u003cem\u003eUnremarried Widow\u003c\/em\u003e, is guaranteed to join the ranks of memoirs that will be talked about for years to come. . . . Truly unforgettable.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A powerful look at mourning as a military wife. . . . You can finish it in a day and find yourself haunted weeks later.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A frank, poignant memoir about an unlikely marriage, a tragic death in Iraq and the soul-testing work of picking up the pieces.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Charm and candor reside in abundance. . . . A singular, transformative account.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Artis Henderson's grief becomes our gift in her piercingly beautiful memoir. . . . It is exceptional both because Henderson is a fine, spare and unsentimental writer—and because many if not most of us are never this close to the sorrow and upheaval a military loss brings.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBuffalo News on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The book is a brave, unforgettable rendering of a young woman's difficult struggle to let go of one life and slowly embrace another. Not to mention the terrible, human cost of prolonged war.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePalm Beach Post (Book of the Month) on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Artis Henderson’s book is easily the best memoir I read last year. It’s one of those books you pick up and don’t put down until you’re done. And, believe me, you are done. Henderson underwrites every scene, and, because her writing is so clean and controlled, each sentence tightens her grip on your heart. When she releases you, expect to be blinded by tears.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHeadButler.com on Unremarried Widow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A stranger-than-fiction story packed with sabotage, betrayal, and international intrigue. But at the heart… about gut-wrenching grief, which Henderson writes about with remarkable grace.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eColumbia Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“One part true crime saga, and one part biography of a poor Georgia farmer turned pilot turned multimillionaire drug runner who was killed in a strange plane crash– Henderson’s father.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCrimeReads\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890360643813,"sku":"NP9780358650270","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780358650270.jpg?v=1730233115","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/no-ordinary-bird-drug-smuggling-a-plane-crash-and-a-daughters-quest-for-the-truth-isbn-9780358650270","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}