Unfinished Business

In 2013, Gennifer Choldenko published the third book in her Tales from Alcatraz trilogy. At the time, she thought she was finished with the series. It tells the story of Moose, the son of a guard at the prison on Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco, California, in the 1930s. But something didn’t seem right to Choldenko. “I had this feeling there was more to the story that I needed to tell,” she told TFK. That’s why, five years later, Moose is back, in Al Capone Throws Me a Curve. The final book in the series—for real, this time—follows Moose through the summer before high school. He’s trying to make the baseball team and care for his sister, who has autism—all while living on an island with America’s most dangerous criminals, including infamous gangster Al Capone.