With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation conceived in Liberty hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict.
Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?
With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.
Going as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, to the early days of Cuban baseball, Wendel traces the spread of American baseball fever in the Caribbean and Mexico; discusses lesser-known historical standouts, including Adolfo Luque and Martin Dihigo; and describes the days when only light-skinned Latinos wereallowed to participate in Major League competition as well as the linguistic barrier many Latinos faced when playing on teams with English only rules.
Featuring interviews with Latino superstars past and present; a foreword by Bob Costas; the first-ever-published Latino All-Century Team, featuring players selected by Omar Minaya; and photos taken by award-winning Sports Illustrated photographer Victor Baldizon, The New Face of Baseball helps fans of America's favorite pastime to understand the history of those who bring hope and honor every season to the teams they have given their lives to, and the Hispanic culture that, if allowed, can lie hidden and unnoticed under a team jersey.
When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a Cancer Moonshot, this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research.
The author's daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this amazing success story. Tim Wendel soon discovered that many of the doctors at the forefront of this effort cared for his brother at Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York. Wendel went in search of this extraordinary group, interviewing Lucius Sinks, James Holland, Donald Pinkel, and others in the field. If there were a Mount Rushmore for cancer research, they would be on it.
Despite being ostracized by their medical peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. Part family memoir and part medical narrative, Cancer Crossings explores how the Wendel family found the courage to move ahead with their lives. They learned to sail on Lake Ontario, cruising across miles of open water together, even as the campaign against cancer changed their lives forever.