The New Orleans-based investigative journalist and historian Robert W. Fiesler is quickly building a dynamic and laureled career uncovering forgotten stories of ordinary individuals confronted — one might say trapped — by extraordinary circumstances.
His first book, 2018’s “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation,” chronicled the 1973 French Quarter arson attack that, despite claiming the lives of 49 individuals, the nation’s deadliest attack on a gay bar for four-plus decades, was largely ignored in New Orleans.
Fiesler’s latest book, “American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives,” exposes a chilling episode in the Sunshine State’s history, the closed-door inquisition of ordinary Americans by a power-mad, gerrymandered state senator. Composed like a procedural thriller, it has also earned several honors, including being named a Kirkus Best Book of 2025.…