Desperate Audiobook By Kris Maher cover art

Desperate

An Epic Battle for Clean Water and Justice in Appalachia

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Desperate

By: Kris Maher
Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
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Set in Appalachian coal country, this “superb” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) legal drama follows one determined lawyer as he faces a coal industry giant in a seven-year battle over clean drinking water for a West Virginia community.

For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn’t look, smell, or taste right. Could the water be the root of the health problems—from kidney stones to cancer—in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so.

For seven years, Thompson waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia’s most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. While Massey’s lawyers worked out of a gray glass office tower in Charleston known as “the Death Star,” Thompson set up shop in a ramshackle hotel in the fading coal town of Williamson. Working with fellow lawyers and a crew of young activists, Thompson would eventually uncover the ruthless shortcuts that put the community’s drinking water at risk.

Retired coal miners, women whose families had lived in the area’s coal camps for generations, a respected preacher and his brother, all put their trust in Thompson when they had nowhere else to turn. Desperate is a masterful work of investigative reporting about greed and denial, “both a case study in exploitation of the little guy and a playbook for confronting it” (Kirkus Reviews). Maher crafts a revealing portrait of a town besieged by hardship and heartbreak, and an inspiring account of one tenacious environmental lawyer’s mission to expose the truth and demand justice. Biographies & Memoirs Politics & Government Social Sciences True Crime Public Policy Law Sociology Crime

Critic reviews

"Frazier has excellent timing, a smooth voice, and appropriate vocal variations that differentiate between direct quotes, written documents, and the narrative. He portrays the multiple people who are part of this story with seeming ease. The work is wide-ranging and deep, with clear descriptions of the complicated search for the source of the contaminated water and the rags-to-riches-to-jail story of the company manager."
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This is a wonderful book chronicling the fight for clean water and truth in the face of coal companies in West Virginia. In the lineage of “The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Empire of Pain”, Maher brings the communities and people into fully realized characters showing the challenges and drama of small town Appalachia where coal companies are both large employers and powerful forces driven by profit maximization. Centered around an epic court battle, “Desperate” is both impossible to put down and enormously educational.

Fabulous investigative reporting

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