In the days immediately following September 11, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long-held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.<BR><BR>The Dark Side is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world---decisions that not only violated the Constitution, which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions---U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.<BR><BR>The Dark Side relates real, specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of what was happening in Washington, looking at the intelligence gained---or not---and the price paid. In some instances, torture worked. In many more, it led to false information, sometimes with devastating results. For instance, there is the stunning admission of one of the detainees, Sheikh Ibn al-Libi, that the confession he gave under duress---which provided a key piece of evidence buttressing congressional support for going to war against Iraq---was in fact fabricated, to make the torture stop.<BR><BR>In all cases, whatever the short-term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. The Dark Side chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency.<BR><BR>In the wake of a wildly disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in storybook Templeton, New York, looking to hide in the one place to which she swore she'd never come back. As soon as she arrives, though, a prehistoric monster surfaces in Lake Glimmerglass, changing the very fabric of the town. What's more, Willie's hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mother, Vi, tells her a secret she's been hiding for nearly thirty years: that Willie's father wasn't the random man from a free-love commune that Vi had led her to imagine, but someone else entirely. Someone from this very town. As willie puts her archaeological skills to work digging for the truth about her lineage, she discovers that the secrets of her family run deep when dark mysteries come to light and the shocking truth about more than one monster is revealed.<BR><BR>"Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more...There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end."---Stephen King<BR><BR>"Groff's multilayered saga both thrills and delights with poignant, breathtaking prose."---Entertainment Weekly (A)<BR><BR>"A fascinating first novel...with joy in its marrow---fabulous."---San Francisco Chronicle<BR><BR>"This inventive and ambitious novel, nestled in a town with its own Loch Ness monster, is a refreshing and smart contemporary work."---Seattle Post-Intelligencer<BR><BR>"Groff's lively and poetic debut novel...[is] sweet and slightly wry, poignant yet beautifully understated... Willie and her ancestors tell stories rich in history, painful with deceit and misery, and triumphant in salvation."---Boston Globe<BR><BR>"Richly imagined...What Groff illustrates so deeply, and uniquely, is the difficulty of shaking off one's family ties, one's roots."---Los Angeles Times Book Review