Summerlings

"As a boy my first literary hero was Tom Sawyer, and ever since I've enjoyed the misadventures and romps of kids loose in the summertime. Summerlings is a story rich in local color, humor, outrageous characters, and with a wicked plot."—John GrishamA Cold War coming-of-age story in which three best friends confront their fears of the Bomb, Russian spies, bullies, and their role in the tragic event that ushers them into adulthood.It's the summer of 1959. For the families who live on Connors Lane in Washington DC, life is still defined by what one did during WWII. Behind each door lives a possible spy or Nazi sympathizer, the family of a foreign diplomat, or someone who escaped the conflagration in Europe just in time. But it is also the summer of an inexplicable spider infestation—surely evidence of "insect warfare" by the Russians, thinks our young narrator John, and his best friends, Ivan and Max. When a rare, scorpion-like vinegaroon is...