{"product_id":"9781560852278","title":"The Thieves of Summer","description":"\u003cp\u003eSet in Salt Lake City at the height of the Great Depression, Linda Sillitoe’s last novel opens with three little girls, eleven-year-old triplets, skipping in front of their house at 1300 South, across from Liberty Park. They giggle lightly as they chant: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrin-cess Al-ice in Liberty Park\u003cbr\u003eMunch-es ba-nan-as ’til way after dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrincess Alice is an elephant the children of Utah purchased by donating nickels and dimes to a circus. The girls don’t know this, but her handler takes the mammoth princess out on late-night strolls around the park when the moon is out. What they do know is that the elephant sometimes escapes and goes on a rampage, crashing through front-yard fences and collecting collars of clothesline laundry around her neck, a persistent train of barking dogs following behind. The girls’ father is a police officer who is investigating a boy’s disappearance. As the case unfolds, the perception of the park, with its eighty acres of trees and grass, will change from the epitome of freedom to a place to be avoided, even as Princess Alice moves to a secure confinement at a new zoo at the mouth of Emigration Canyon. The story is loosely based on the exploits of a real live elephant that lived in Liberty Park a decade before Sillitoe’s childhood in the neighborhood.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signature Books, Incorporated","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47062968271088,"sku":"9781560852278","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781560852278_p0.jpg?v=1763758760","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781560852278","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}