The Blue Hill Public Library and Blue Hill Books are cosponsoring an author event with Tom Ricks for the release of his latest novel We Can't Save You on Thursday, July 31 at 7PM. in the library's Howard Room.

When a group of young Native Americans launches a series of protests against climate change and its effects on the waters and woods of Maine, veteran FBI agent Ryan Tapia is assigned to monitor the movement. The protestors, who become determined to split away from American society, are led by “Peeled Paul” Soco, a Malpense hermit who played a key role in one of Tapia's previous investigations. When the marchers begin making camps on the lawns of luxurious summer mansions along the Maine coast, they win national media attention—and the wrath of a reactionary president. Tapia soon finds himself torn. He wants to do right by Soco and the protestors, but his bosses at the Bureau are eager to please a president itching to crack down on them. Growing increasingly sympathetic to the protestors and their cause, he tells them about a possible refuge—a secret CIA base hidden away in the depths of the Maine woods on the Canadian border. Enraged by the protestors' actions, the White House sends a U.S. Army unit to track down the protestors on their stealth march through the evergreen forests. Meanwhile, Tapia’s bosses, vexed and embarrassed, fire him and threaten arrest. Undaunted, Tapia snowmobiles through the wilderness on a wintry night to warn the Indian protestors of the impending attack.

Thomas E. Ricks is a writer and the military history columnist for The New York Times Book Review. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008. Until the end of 1999 he had the same beat at the Wall Street Journal, where he was a reporter for 17 years. He reported on U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was part of a Wall Street Journal team that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2000 for a series of articles on how the U.S. military might change to meet the new demands of the 21st century. He is the author of nine books.

This program is free and open to all, and will be held in the library's Howard Room. Blue Hill Books will be onsite with copies of the books available for purchase. For more information, please email Assistant Director Kayleigh Thomas at kayleigh.thomas@bhpl.net or call the library at 374-5515.