{"title":"Robin Yocum","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the heart of Appalachian Ohio with Robin Yocum's gripping tales of suspense and mystery. Explore small-town secrets and compelling characters reminiscent of John Grisham or Scott Turow. Start browsing now!\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"brilliant-death-book-robin-yocum-9781633881280","title":"A Brilliant Death","description":"A 2017 EDGAR(R) AWARD FINALIST! Amanda Baron died in a boating accident on the Ohio River in 1953. Or, did she? While it was generally accepted that she had died when a coal barge rammed the pleasure boat she was sharing with her lover, her body was never found. Travis Baron was an infant when his mother disappeared. After the accident and the subsequent publicity, Travis's father scoured the house of all evidence that Amanda Baron had ever lived, and her name was never to be uttered around him. Now in high school, Travis yearns to know more about his mother. With the help of his best friend, Mitch Malone, Travis begins a search for the truth about the mother he never knew. The two boys find an unlikely ally: an alcoholic former detective who served time for falsifying evidence. Although his reputation is in tatters, the information the detective provides about the death of Amanda Baron is indisputable - and dangerous. Nearly two decades after her death, Travis and Mitch piece together a puzzle lost to the dark waters of the Ohio River. They know how Amanda Baron died, and why. Now what do they do with the information?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601640104209,"sku":"GOR013331357","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49631645565201,"sku":"GOR007795891","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49849616498961,"sku":"CIN1633881288G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50106135413009,"sku":"CIN1633881288A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51417577652497,"sku":"CIN1633881288VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51849090990353,"sku":"NIN9781633881280","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1633881288.jpg?v=1751376082"},{"product_id":"essay-book-robin-yocum-9781628727173","title":"The Essay","description":"\u003cb\u003eLike Annie Proulx, Richard Russo, and Richard Ford, Robin Yocum knows how to stake out a claim to a very particular part of America and make it uniquely his own. A book that young adults and veteran readers alike are going to love.--Howard Frank Mosher\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJimmy Lee Hickam, with the help of some and to the consternation of others, fights to create a new destiny and future for himself. Jimmy Lee grew up in the poorest part of Appalachian Ohio with a family history of trouble. His family has been in the same Appalachian hills for generations, and they included moonshiners, drunkards, and thieves. Jimmy Lee is convinced that he will be the same until a coach and a teacher take a chance on him. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJimmy Lee's ability to play football, and a coach who believed in him, kept him in school his junior year. Jimmy Lee's English teacher takes a chance on him and saves his eligibility for the upcoming football season. That faith results in a fabulous essay that few believe Jimmy Lee wrote. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is a story of finding a door outside of one's current situation and a way to transcend the times and judgments of others. It is a celebration of students who surprise themselves and the adults who believe in them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49707750916369,"sku":"CIN1628727179G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50764757860625,"sku":"CIN1628727179VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51040167166225,"sku":"NIN9781628727173","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53595196490001,"sku":"GOR010264789","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53622340026641,"sku":"CIN1628727179A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1628727179.jpg?v=1766657509"},{"product_id":"perfect-shot-book-robin-yocum-9781633884175","title":"A Perfect Shot","description":"A local basketball star in a small Ohio town tries to remake his life in middle age, but instead must confront a murderer and the prospect of leaving his hometown and giving up everything that once gave his life meaning. Nicholas 'Duke' Ducheski is the most important man in the eastern Ohio steel town of Mingo Junction. Nearly two decades after he made the winning shot in the state championship basketball game, he remains much adored and the focal point of community pride. Hardly a day passes when someone doesn't want to talk about 'the game. ' Now approaching forty, Duke no longer wants to be defined solely by something he did when he was eighteen. So he decides to parlay his local popularity into a successful restaurant-'Duke's Place. ' But no sooner does he get his restaurant up and running than disaster strikes. One day, 'Little Tony' DeMarco, his brother-in-law and a known mob enforcer, comes into the restaurant and murders Duke's oldest friend. Now Duke faces the hardest decision of his life. DeMarco thinks he's untouchable, but Duke discovers a way to take him down, along with his mob superiors. To do so, however, means leaving Mingo Junction and sacrificing his treasured identity as the town legend. And if he follows through, what will remain of his life?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49709460914449,"sku":"CIN1633884171G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51491334324497,"sku":"CIN1633884171VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51890689179921,"sku":"GOR014448582","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1633884171.jpg?v=1751024059"},{"product_id":"welcome-murder-book-robin-yocum-9781633882638","title":"A Welcome Murder","description":"After his unspectacular professional baseball career ends with a knee injury in Toledo, Ohio, Johnny Earl gets busted for selling cocaine. After serving seven years in prison, all he wants to do is return to his hometown of Steubenville, retrieve the drug money he stashed before he went to jail, and start a new life where no one has ever heard of Johnny Earl. However, before he can leave town with his money, Johnny is picked up for questioning in the murder of Rayce Daubner, the FBI informant who had set him up on drug charges in the first place. Then his former prison cellmate shows up-a white supremacist who wants the drug money to help fund an Aryan nation in the wilds of Idaho. Five memorable characters, each with a separate agenda, come together in this layered tale of murder, deceit, and political intrigue.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49709466157329,"sku":"CIN1633882632G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51420993978641,"sku":"GOR010147284","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51588493541649,"sku":"GOR010028119","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51684676600081,"sku":"CIN1633882632VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52627191333137,"sku":"NLS9781633882638","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52648029618449,"sku":"CIN1633882632LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52752452354321,"sku":"NIN9781633882638","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1633882632.jpg?v=1751986087"},{"product_id":"essay-book-robin-yocum-9781611457667","title":"The Essay","description":"Jimmy Lee Hickam grew up along Red Dog Road, a dead-end strip of gravel and mud buried deep in the bowels of Appalachian Ohio. It is the poorest road, in the poorest county, in the poorest region of the state. To make things worse, the name Hickam is synonymous with trouble. Jimmy Lee hails from a heathen mix of thieves, moonshiners, drunkards, and general anti-socials that for decades have clung to both the hardscrabble hills and the iron bars of every jail cell in the region. This life, Jimmy Lee believes, is his destiny, someday working with his drunkard father at the sawmill, or sitting next to his arsonist brother in the penitentiary. There aren’t many options if your last name is Hickam.      An inspiring coach and Jimmy Lee's ability to play football are the only things motivating him to return for his junior year of high school—until his visionary English teacher cuts him a break and preserves his eligibility for the coming football season. To thank her, Jimmy Lee writes a winning essay in the high school writing contest. When irate parents and the baffled administration claim he has cheated, his teacher is inspired to take his writing talent as far as it can go, showing him the path out of the hills of Appalachia.               Terrific characterizations, surprising revelations, gut-wrenching past betrayals, and an unforgettable cast of characters born of the dusty, worn-out landscape of southeastern Ohio make The Essay a powerful, evocative, and incredibly moving novel.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49725424304401,"sku":"CIN1611457661A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50394912456977,"sku":"CIN1611457661G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50893878657297,"sku":"CIN1611457661VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1611457661.jpg?v=1751342136"},{"product_id":"favorite-sons-book-robin-yocum-9781611450040","title":"Favorite Sons","description":"Narrator of Favorite Sons Hutch Van Buren is fifteen years old, playing sports and searching for arrowheads in a small industrial town in Ohio with his three closest friends when an altercation between the comrades and Petey Sanchez, a troubled seventeen- year-old, leads to Petey’s accidental death. Together, Hutch and his friends become ensnared in a web of secrets and moral dilemmas. A local ne’er-do-well goes to jail for the crime while the boys keep their pact of silence. Each boy shoulders the burden of truth in his own way as each attempts to leave the past behind.   Thirty-three years later, in 2004, Van Buren is the prosecuting attorney in Summit County, Ohio, and a candidate for state attorney general when he learns that he and his boyhood friends weren’t the only ones keeping a secret about Petey’s death. A convicted sex offender in need of a favor attempts to blackmail Van Buren in return for his silence. Van Buren must decide between his political career and the duty of the office he has sworn to uphold. With the clock ticking, Van Buren has a week to seek out his boyhood friends and search his soul while he sorts out three decades of deceit he helped create.  Favorite Sons is a wonderful, suspenseful novel with nuanced, memorable characters and unpredictable plot twists.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49917745856785,"sku":"CIN1611450047A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50124357730577,"sku":"CIN1611450047G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50633230844177,"sku":"CIN1611450047VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1611450047.jpg?v=1751214297"},{"product_id":"sacrifice-of-lester-yates-book-robin-yocum-9781951627539","title":"The Sacrifice of Lester Yates","description":"\u003cb\u003e** Finalist for the 2022 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing **\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Lester Yates is the notorious Egypt Valley Strangler, one of the country's most prolific serial killers. Or, is he? Yates is two months from his date with the executioner when Ohio Attorney General Hutch Van Buren is presented with evidence that could exonerate him. But Yates is a political pawn, and forces exist that don't want him exonerated, regardless of the evidence. To do so could derail presidential aspirations and change the national political landscape. Yates' execution will clear a wide political path for many influential people, including Van Buren, who must battle both the clock and a political machine of which he is a part.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Robin Yocum has been compared with E. Annie Proulx for his authenticity of place, and Elmore Leonard for his well-laid plots and perfect pacing. Arcade is thrilled to publish \u003ci\u003eThe Sacrifice of Lester Yates, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich is Yocum at his best: suspenseful, political, and smart.   \u003cbr\u003e  ","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50140431974673,"sku":"CIN1951627539G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51692963397905,"sku":"CIN1951627539VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1951627539.jpg?v=1750804531"},{"product_id":"favorite-sons-book-robin-yocum-9781628727562","title":"Favorite Sons","description":"Hutch Van Buren is fifteen years old, playing sports and searching for arrowheads in a small industrial town in Ohio with his three closest friends when an altercation between them and Petey Sanchez, a troubled seventeen-year-old, leads to Petey's accidental death. Vowing a pact of silence, they allow a local ne'er-do-well to go to jail for the crime. As they grow older, each boy shoulders the burden of truth in his own way as each attempts to leave the past behind. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThirty-three years later, in 2004, Van Buren is the prosecuting attorney in Summit County, Ohio, and a candidate for state attorney general when he learns that he and his boyhood friends weren't the only ones keeping a secret about Petey's death. A convicted sex offender in need of a favor attempts to blackmail Van Buren in return for his silence. Van Buren must decide between his political career and the duty of the office he has sworn to uphold. With the clock ticking, Van Buren has a week to seek out his boyhood friends and search his soul while he sorts out three decades of deceit he helped create. This suspenseful novel with nuanced, memorable characters was named Book of the Year for Mystery\/Suspense by USA Book News, was selected for the Choose to Read Ohio program for 2013-14, and was a featured book of the 2012 Ohioana Book Festival.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50395731788049,"sku":"CIN162872756XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52630643704081,"sku":"CIN162872756XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/162872756X.jpg?v=1751277862"},{"product_id":"dead-before-deadline-book-robin-yocum-9781931968157","title":"Dead Before Deadline","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50462875222289,"sku":"CIN1931968152G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50589656711441,"sku":"CIN1931968152VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1931968152.jpg?v=1751381201"},{"product_id":"insured-for-murder-book-robin-yocum-9780879758424","title":"Insured for Murder","description":"All the ingredients of a first-rate thriller stand out in this investigative report by Robin Yocum and Catherine Candisky, who reveal a sinister and deadly con game that was three years in the making: a murder, an insurance scam with a multi-million dollar payoff, a playboy businessman, a sinister stun-gun-toting neurologist, false identities, and an international manhunt.  On the morning of April 16, 1988, the emergency squad was called to the office of Dr. Richard P. Boggs, a respected neurologist in Glendale, California. On the floor of the examining room was the body of Melvin E. Hanson, the vice president of the Just Sweats athletic clothing store chain, based in Columbus, Ohio. Apparently, he had collapsed and died of heart failure during a routine examination. Early next morning, Hanson's business partner and the company president, John B. Hawkins, arrived from Columbus and had the body unceremoniously cremated. The coroner ruled that Hanson died of natural causes, so there was nothing to be investigated, and the Glendale police did not pursue the case further.  But this wasn't just another unfortunate death. There was something very, very wrong here. The body lying on the floor was not Hanson's. The corpse was an anonymous double who had been murdered in a scheme to fraudulently collect on Hanson's life insurance policy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50462880956689,"sku":"CIN0879758422G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50918329090321,"sku":"CIN0879758422VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51154295685393,"sku":"NIN9780879758424","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52680547860753,"sku":"NLS9780879758424","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0879758422.jpg?v=1750704340"},{"product_id":"last-hitman-book-robin-yocum-9798892423731","title":"The Last Hitman","description":"Once upon a time, being a 'made man' meant something. Angelo Cipriani was a member of the inner circle of the Fortuna Crime Family, one of the biggest mafia families in the Ohio Valley. Not that Angelo would ever admit to such an organization even existing, let alone to all of the bodies he dropped for his boss. Angelo even stayed loyal after taking a bullet in the back and winding up in a coma for three months. But times have changed. Four decades have passed and the glory days of mob rule have waned. With FBI crackdowns and new rival gangs seizing territory, Angelo finds himself on the outs with the current administration, essentially 'on the shelf.' Left with little excitement beyond a crush on the local diner waitress, he does the unthinkable and puts pen to paper, telling his story of coming up, a man of honour in a world that he barely recognizes. But Angelo's reminiscences are rudely interrupted by a visit from the FBI, and the realisation that the past is far from dead and buried. Faced with old secrets and fresh betrayals, Angelo finds himself unretired: The Last Hitman is ready to get back to work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53612970049809,"sku":"NGR9798892423731","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9798892423731.jpg?v=1780315945"},{"product_id":"last-hitman-book-robin-yocum-9798892423748","title":"The Last Hitman","description":"Once upon a time, being a 'made man' meant something. Angelo Cipriani was a member of the inner circle of the Fortuna Crime Family, one of the biggest mafia families in the Ohio Valley. Not that Angelo would ever admit to such an organization even existing, let alone to all of the bodies he dropped for his boss. Angelo even stayed loyal after taking a bullet in the back and winding up in a coma for three months. But times have changed. Four decades have passed and the glory days of mob rule have waned. With FBI crackdowns and new rival gangs seizing territory, Angelo finds himself on the outs with the current administration, essentially 'on the shelf.' Left with little excitement beyond a crush on the local diner waitress, he does the unthinkable and puts pen to paper, telling his story of coming up, a man of honour in a world that he barely recognizes. But Angelo's reminiscences are rudely interrupted by a visit from the FBI, and the realisation that the past is far from dead and buried. Faced with old secrets and fresh betrayals, Angelo finds himself unretired: The Last Hitman is ready to get back to work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53613010583825,"sku":"NGR9798892423748","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9798892423748.jpg?v=1780316071"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-robin-yocum.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}