Vickie Stringer is a leading figure in the hip-hop or "urban fiction" category. A former convict, she self-published her first book in 2001 after receiving dozens of rejections from the publishing establishment. Her books, and others in this genre, are about urban life, with a heavy dose of sex and crime. Many hip-hop novels are sold underground. (I bought one recently directly from an author, Brad Bathgate, who was selling his self-published paperback Pretty Ugly: A Harlem Situation on the subway in NYC.) Increasingly, these books are finding their way into bookstores. Vickie Stringer is now the CEO of Triple Crown Publications, which produces and promotes the work of other urban fiction writers. The publishing industry has taken note of this real market, and has started offering attractive book deals to some of her authors. So Stringer is now a literary agent as well. She was recently profiled by Cheryl Corley on NPR.
When I wrote ths book in 2000, I was concerned about children having access to the Internet and to chat rooms where "you can be anyone you want." Here we are many years later and the situation with children talking freely to stangers on the Internet
In the waning days of World War II, a man lies injured in a London hospital, shrouded in mystery and confusion. He is an American serviceman, stripped of his identity and memories, save for the name John, and plagued by vivid visions of battles that
