 Windfall
In his twenties and thirties, Ben never thought about
money—more or less what you'd expect from a scholar whose
specialty was the transcendentalists. But now, in his forties,
trying to raise two children on a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year
salary, it's all he thinks about. Then, one night, things
change. Searching for the stray family cat, Ben finds in the
basement of an abandoned feed store eight coolers filled with
fifty-dollar bills. A windfall. For a while, their lives
improve. But when someone comes looking for the coolers, Ben
discovers that everything comes with a cost.
“Windfall does to the reader what
found money does to its hero: it grabs hold and doesn’t let
go. Magnuson leads us expertly through the minefields of
betrayal, the nature of success, the lure of materialism. It’s
what would happen if Alfred Hitchcock teamed up with Henry David
Thoreau. But at its core Windfall is a fierce taut
thriller about the biggest crimes of all—the crimes of the
heart.” —William Broyles, screenwriter of Castaway
and Apollo Thirteen and author of Brothers in Arms.
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 Ghost
Dancing
At the center of Ghost Dancing is the legendary film
director Jeremiah Gage, whose notoriety is based on his violent
and antiheroic films. When Gage discovers that his son Peter,
who disappeared in the radical underground of the late sixties,
may still be alive, he searches for him through ghost towns
resurrected by the counterculture, through the isolated mountain
villages of northern New Mexico. Part thriller, part fable, part
ghost story, Ghost Dancing is tightly plotted and rich in
psychological complexity, a story of the healing of wounds, both
personal and historical.
"Ghost Dancing is a book of
surprising gifts. A story of violence but also of tenderness,
growth, and the power of hearts open to challenge, risk,
Life." —Alice Walker
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 Money
Mountain
The only clue is a bracelet, with the burnt carving of a
hunchbacked flute player etched into the weathered copper. It is
just a rumor, but to Mack McLaine, a down-on-his-luck country
singer, it sounded like the Holy Grail. From the splendor of
Santa Fe to the dusty wastelands of El Dorado and the dark heart
of the American Dream... Money Mountain explores the
struggle of four men to be rich beyond imagination, no matter
what the price.
"A gripping and suspenseful story...while
it bears comparison to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
and Deliverance, Magnuson is his own man and this is a
chilling, original work." —Thomas Chastain
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 Open
Season
Set against the awesome beauty of the Grand Tetons, Open
Season is a novel about a charmed circle of friends and what
happens when an outsider falls in love with the dazzling—and
married—woman at its center. From the moment Mark and Barbara
meet, to the frightening climax, Open Season combines
high action with harrowing insight into the struggle between the
ties that bind people and the needs that tear them apart.
"James Magnuson writes convincingly about
the majestic Teton scenery; he is also wise about the terrible
ways adult follies can wound children…. On the most basic
level Open Season captured me." —New York Times
Book Review
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 Orphan
Train
by James Magnuson and Dorothea G. Petrie
This tender novel vividly recreates life in the 1850s when tens
of thousands of abandoned, homeless children roamed the streets
of New York City. As twenty-eight-year-old Emma Symns is placed
in charge of taking a train full of children to the Midwest in
search of new homes, she is about to begin the adventure of her
life.
"The story glows with the spirit of
heroism and human warmth." —Milwaukee Journal
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 The
Rundown
Vic Rawlings, if he had lived to forty, might have become just
another over-the-hill ex-ballplayer, remembering the days of
stardom in the major leagues. He might have ended up like Ron
Price, former "folk hero" of the New York Warriors,
now scouting bush-league teams in the Midwest. But Rawlings
disappears at the peak of his career. It all adds up to a taut
and brilliantly told novel whose suspense is as much in
psychological revelations as in the romantic unfolding of
events.
"From the tradition of Hammet and
MacDonald…a beautifully written piece of work."
—New York Times Book Review
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 Without
Barbarians
A marriage comes apart—but the two people remain caught in it,
unable to disengage themselves from each other. The emotions
remain fresh, unmuted—anger, jealousy, passion—they are as
raw as new wounds. In Without Barbarians, Gene and Anne
are victims of their time.
"In spite of the many differences of
outlook, time and milieu, James Magnuson's first novel, Without
Barbarians, is a study in losses, worthy to stand beside
another first novel, The Sun Also Rises."
—Carlos Baker, author of Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
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