Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in 20th Century

Southern France, 1944: What should be a simple assignment with a Special Operations Executive officer gets complicated quickly as Billy navigates the tensions between Resistance groups in the process of gathering information on Vichy officials and other collaborators who escaped with the retreating Germans. Unexpectedly, the SOE officer has many enemies in the Resistance, linked to the failed Vercors uprising. With sacrifice and betrayal afoot, Billy doesn’t know who he can trust, or how close to death this case may bring him.

Summer 1944: Yugoslavia is locked in a war within a war. In addition to fighting the German occupation, warring factions battle each other. Hundreds of Allied airmen have been shot down over this volatile region, among them American lieutenant Bill Bogdonavich. Though grateful to the locals who are risking their lives to shelter and protect him from German troops, Bogdonavich dreams of the impossible: escape.

Just days after the Liberation of Paris, US Army Detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition, and Billy is dealing with emotional exhaustion and his recent methamphetamine abuse. Meanwhile, Billy's love, Diana Seaton, has been taken to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and Kaz's sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with the Polish Underground, has also been captured and transported to the same camp.

In 1942, an impulsive promise to her brother before he goes off to the European front puts Avis Montgomery in the unlikely position of head librarian in small-town Maine. Though she has never been much of a reader, when wartime needs threaten to close the library, she invents a book club to keep its doors open. The women she convinces to attend the first meeting couldn't be more different—a wealthy spinster determined to aid the war effort, an exhausted mother looking for a fresh start, and a determined young war worker.

Still struggling with personal loss and haunted by the memories of her near-death experience at the hands of the Nazis, dazzling singer Hattie James desires to leave her past behind and focus on reviving her career and rising in the ranks of the glamorous Brazilian music scene. But when she discovers that her mother’s new suitor, Swiss diplomat Frederick Ziegler, is associated with SS leader Heinz Baumann, Hattie’s suspicions ignite..

As a child growing up in 1920s Paris, Ida Chagall copes with her father Marc Chagall's brilliant artistic mind and overbearing ego and the tight leash he keeps on her. But as Ida blossoms into a young woman, she begins to glimpse freedom and opportunities for herself.

When widowed Washington, D.C., socialite Edith Bolling meets President Woodrow Wilson, the attraction is immediate. A whirlwind romance results in a proposal of marriage, which Edith happily accepts—along with the important role of First Lady. By the end of the Great War, Edith is accompanying her husband to Europe for peace talks, meeting heads of state and dealing with foreign affairs. But something is wrong with Woodrow. During several meetings, he seems to lose concentration and looks confused, leaving her to manage on her own.

In his first-ever collection, the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries presents an eclectic mix of new and previously published mystery stories rife with historical detail and riveting wartime storytelling. Full of terror, action, amusement, and bliss, The Refusal Camp is a must-have collection from one of historical crime fiction’s most acclaimed authors.

The year 1955, New York City, the city of progress. But in the Perlman residence, the past is as close as the present. Rachel Perlman, a child of Berlin and an artist bearing her mother's legacy, arrives in New York as part of the wave of Jewish Displaced persons who managed to survive the brutalities of the war. But despite her efforts, Rachel is unable to live the "normal" life of an American housewife, not until she can shake the ghosts of her past and the tremendous guilt that weighs down on her: the "crime" of survival.

Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Gordon Hooper and his buddy Jack Armitage have stuck to their values as conscientious objectors. Much to their families’ and country’s chagrin, they volunteer as smokejumpers rather than enlisting, parachuting into and extinguishing raging wildfires in Oregon. But the number of winter blazes they’re called to seems suspiciously high, and when an accident leaves Jack badly injured, Gordon realizes the facts don’t add up.

Surviving Dresden beautifully portrays the poignant and inspiring human struggle between good and evil in the search for peace during the last bloody days of World War II. On the ground, on that horrific night, is a courageous young Jewish woman, Gisela Kauffmann. Having just received orders to be herded off to a concentration camp, Gisela will do anything to save herself and her family. In the air, RAF bomber Captain Wallace Campbell is torn between his sworn military duty to bomb an unarmed city crowded with refugees, and his growing conviction that total war is immoral.

In the midst of WWII, Jane Linder pours all her energy and dreams for a family into her career at the Toronto Children's Aid Society. As acting directress, Jane hopes for a permanent appointment so she can continue making a difference in the lives of troubled children. But if anyone were to find out she is divorced, everything would change. Garrett Wilder has been hired to overhaul operations at the Children's Aid Society. He hopes to impress the board members with his findings and earn the vacant director's position. Despite their competing interests, feelings begin to blossom.

Rachel, the mother of the aging professor Thomas Vanderlinden, shared her life with two men. Both went by the name of Rowland Vanderlinden. The first husband went abroad and never returned. The second, whom Rachel also unquestioningly accepted as her husband, was a mystery. In an attempt to understand his mother's adventurous decisions regarding love and marriage, Thomas sets out on a journey to the far reaches of the Pacific to find the first Rowland, and his real father. As the mystery of the two Rowlands unfolds throughout the novel, so too does a fascinating portrait.

El año 1916: Primera Guerra Mundial. Dos hombres se juegan susvidas en una partida de ajedrez. Uno es recluta movilizado, el otro es empleado de ferrocarril. Es un juego con consecuencias graves, y el ganador cambiará su identidad con la de sus contrincante. El año 1943: Segunda Guerra Mundial. Amphitryon es un proyecto de dobles que se entrenan para sustituir a algunos líderes nazis en apariciones públicas. Cincuenta años después, todavía hay una pregunta sobre quien era realmente aquel hombre.

March, 1945. Allied forces are battle-worn but wearily optimistic. Russia's Red Army's advancing hard on Germany from the east, bolstering Allied troops moving in from the west and north. Soon, surely, Axis forces must accept defeat. Yet for Captain Jim Curtis, each day's a reminder of how unpredictable and uncertain warfare can be. Captured during the Battle of the Bulge after the Germans launched a devastating surprise attack, Curtis is imprisoned at a POW camp in Hammelburg, Bavaria. Conditions are grim. Inmates and guards are freezing and starving, rations dwindling day by day.

In the spring of 1914, renowned photographer August Sander took a photograph of three young men on their way to a country dance. This haunting image, capturing the last moments of innocence on the brink of World War I, provides the central focus of Powers' brilliant and compelling novel. As the fate of the three farmers is chronicled, two contemporary stories unfold.

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future...plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs. Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility.

July, 1944, a full month after D-Day. Billy, Kaz, and Big Mike are assigned to investigate a double murder close to the front lines in Normandy. An American officer and a member of the French Resistance were found dead in a manor house outside the town of Trevieres. The investigation is shrouded in secrecy, due to the highly confidential nature of the American unit headquartered at the Manoir de Castilly; the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops.

New York City, 1968: The customers at Café Marie don’t come just for the excellent coffee and pastries. They come for the sophisticated ambiance, and the illusion of being somewhere other than a bustling, exhausting city. Headwaiter Charles Ward helps create that illusion through impeccable service—unobtrusive, nearly invisible, yet always watchful.

Hollywood, 1942. Jacqueline Love's acting career is flailing. Suddenly on the wrong side of 40, parts are drying up, directors are calling her "difficult," and Humphrey Bogart has definitely stopped taking her calls. Desperate to cling to stardom, Jackie takes the only gig that will have her: the Hollywood Victory Caravan, a train full of movie stars crossing the country to fundraise for the war effort. Jackie wouldn't call herself patriotic, but with her life's work on the line, she'll do anything.