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Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth
by Artis Henderson
In 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?"
Artis was five when a plane crash killed her beloved father. For years, it was simply called "the accident."
But 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.
Years 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.
Beyond 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?
"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." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Modest and restrained storytelling that packs an unexpected punch." —Kirkus Reviews
"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." —Griffin Dunne, author of The Afternoon Club
"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." —Annabelle Tometich, Southern Book Prize winning author of The Mango Tree
This information about No Ordinary Bird was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Artis Henderson's work has appeared in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, Reader's Digest and Sierra, among others. Her first memoir, Unremarried Widow, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and named to more than 10 Best of the Year lists. Artis has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the Columbia School of Journalism, and the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A certified master naturalist and advanced open water diver, she splits her time between Florida and Portugal.
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