"In The First Kentucky Derby, racing historian Mark Shrager examines the events leading up to the first "Run for the Roses," the unsuccessful plot hatched by the winning horse's owner to fix the race, and the prominent role played by African-Americans in Gilded Age racing culture-a holdover from pre-emancipation days, when slaves would be trained from birth to ride for their wealthy owners, and would grow up surrounded by the horses that would be...

Drugs, money, cartels: this is what FBI rookie Scott Lawson expected when he was sent to the border town of Laredo, but instead he's deskbound writing intelligence reports about the drug war. Then, one day, Lawson is asked to check out an anonymous tip: a horse was sold at an Oklahoma auction house for a record-topping price, and the buyer was Miguel Trevino, one of the leaders of the Zetas, Mexico's most brutal drug cartel. The source suggested that...