His cello made him famous. His father made him a target.

Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy, growing up in the Southeast DC projects with a drug dealer for a father. But through determination and talent, and the loving support of his father’s girlfriend, Larissa, Curtis claws his way out of his challenging circumstances and rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world — even soloing with the New York Philharmonic.

And then, suddenly, his life disintegrates. His father, Zippy, turns state evidence, implicating his old bosses to the FBI. Now the family, Curtis included, must enter the witness protection program if they want to survive. This means Curtis must give up the very thing he loves most: sharing his extraordinary musical talents with the world. When Zippy’s bosses prove too elusive for law enforcement to convict them, Curtis, Zippy, and Larissa realize that their only chance of survival is to take on the cartel themselves. They must create new identities and draw on their unique talents, including Curtis’s musical ability, to go after the people who want them dead. But will it be enough to keep Curtis and his family alive?

A propulsive and moving story about sacrifice, loyalty, and the indomitable human spirit, The Dark Maestro is Slocumb at the height of his powers.

Brendan Nicholaus Slocumb was raised in Fayetteville, NC, and holds a degree in music education (with concentrations in violin and viola) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more than twenty years he has been a public and private school music educator and has performed with orchestras throughout northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. He is currently based in DC.

Stéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time. He pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight. His girlfriend served as his accomplice, and his collection was worth an estimated $2 billion… but he never sold a piece, and instead displayed his stolen art in his attic bedroom.

He felt like a king. Until everything came to a shocking end.

The Art Thief, a spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, Michael Finkel gives us one of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of our times, a riveting story of art, theft, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.

Author and journalist Michael Finkel always knew he wanted to be a writer. He wrote and traveled widely for the National Geographic Adventure, and other publications. He is the bestselling author of The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit and True Story:
Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa. He lives with his family in northern Utah.

Bauder Adult Battle of the Books is a new Friends & Foundation of HCLS fundraiser event launching as part of the Library’s 85th birthday celebration. It’s an adults-only reading competition where teams of 3–5 people read six preselected books and compete in a trivia challenge held at local restaurants. Proceeds will support some of your favorite Friends’ sponsored initiatives, such as author events, summer reading, Project Literacy graduation, and the youth Battle of the Books.