No Ordinary Bird: Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth

In the vein of Small Fry or Priestdaddy, No Ordinary Bird is a compelling father-daughter story that reads like true crime, haunted by a question the dashing and mysterious Lamar Chester had always taught his daughter to ask: "How do you tell the good guys from the bad?"

Artis was five when a plane crash killed her beloved father. For years, it was simply called "the accident."

But many things weren't getting discussed. Like Lamar himself--a swashbuckling, larger-than-life pilot, a doting father and husband, and the most popular farmer in Georgia. Or that the IRS had immediately taken everything: the chickens, the airplanes, the islands in the Bahamas. . . . Afterwards, Artis and her mother broke contact with everyone and fled, rebuilding from the bottom up as if Lamar's big, wild life had never happened.

Years later, a friend tells Artis Lamar's plane was sabotaged: her father had been one of the biggest drug smugglers in Miami in the 1970s. At the time of his death, he was about to testify in a trial that had swept up everyone from the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, to a US district attorney, to the Colombian drug cartels. But the deeper Artis digs, the more unexpected the story becomes.

Beyond the dramatic betrayals, dangerous drug lords, and geopolitical intrigue is the beating heart of this riveting memoir: a daughter's grappling with a dark legacy and her memories of the father who had been the light of her life. Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and is there a difference at all?

• A Daughter's Quest for the Truth: Thirty years after surviving the crash that killed her father, Artis Henderson dives into a hidden past of secret islands, offshore accounts, and government informants to uncover who Lamar Chester truly was.
• Plane Crash Mystery: The official report called it an accident. But with whispers of sabotage and a missing bolt, was the crash that killed a charismatic smuggler a tragic mistake or a professional hit?
• A Smuggler's Paradise: Explore the hedonistic, high-stakes world of 1970s and '80s Miami, from secret runways in the Bahamas to payoff parties at the notorious Mutiny Club.
• A Question of Conspiracy: With connections to the Iran-Contra affair, Operation Lone Star, and the CIA, was Lamar Chester a simple criminal, or a covert operative the government decided was disposable?