Showing results by publisher "Audio Sommelier" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Shortly after John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln, he was tracked down and shot by authorities - that's what was officially reported, anyway. Lawyer Finis L. Bates, however, decided to set the record straight when he reported that in 1870 his acquaintance "John St. Helen" revealed himself to be none other than Booth living under an alter ego. Bates' version of the story is this: a hushed-up escape led Booth to 38 years of secret identities and an eventual suicide in an Oklahoma hotel. In this historical text, Bates unpacks the surprising truth about this infamous assassin.

Poe’s characters often take turns for the worse, and this is the literal case in this shipwreck story by the author. Aboard a ship taking off from Indonesia, the narrator’s ship and crew is struck by a storm that kills everyone but the narrator and one other crewmember. As the ship sales on under the enchantment of the storm, it collides with another seemingly enchanted object - a large black galleon crewed by blind men. The narrator keeps a ship’s log while aboard and is forced to abandon it over the side of the ship with the hopes of someone reading it someday.  

Poe brings the reality of life and death to the forefront as he weaves a story within a story. When the narrator runs into an old man, the man begins to tell the tale of how he aged so rapidly. Only a day before, he was young - but lost his shipmates into a vicious maelstrom and the powers of the sea. After the initial terror of the event has subsided, he is able to examine the beauty and the power of the forces that can both provide life and take it away without note.  

Unable to divorce his wife, a man resolves to murder her instead. “Marriage at best is but a compromise,” the author notes, “and if two people happen to be united who are of an uncompromising nature, there is trouble.” This trouble takes a surprising turn when the man leads his wife out to an outlook to do the deed.