Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in International Mystery & Crime

Taipei is rocked by the back-to-back murders of a petty criminal and a police captain just as the city is preparing to host the big Austronesian Cultural Festival. The celebration is set to bring in indigenous performers from all around the Pacific Rim to the island nation of Taiwan. Jing-nan, the proprietor of Unknown Pleasures, a popular food stand at Taipei’s largest night market, is thrown into the intrigue. Is he being set up to take the rap, or will he be the next victim? T

This riveting 20th installment entangled Parisian private investigator AiméeLeduc in a dangerous web of international spycraft and terrorist threats in Paris's 15th arrondissement. November 2001: in the wake of 9/11, Paris is living in a state of fear. For Aimée Leduc, November is bittersweet: the anniversary of her father’s death and her daughter’s third birthday fall on the same day.

How far would you go for your best friend? If she begged you to, would you kill her? Nathan Lucius, 31, is an ad salesman at a local Cape Town newspaper. Disaffected, hard-drinking and plagued by nightmares, Nathan lives alone with only one true friend, a woman named Madge. But Madge is dying slowly of cancer, and when she asks Nathan to end her pain, she sets off a shocking string of events.

Twelve-year-old Bonnie MacDonald - the beloved step dancing, fiddling youngest member of Cape Breton's famed Clan Donnie band - vanishes after a family party. There was no stranger spotted lurking around, but no one thinks for one minute that Bonnie ran away. Maura MacNeil, cousin to Clan Donnie, offers her husband's legal services to the family as the police search for the missing girl. But fame attracts some strange characters, and Clan Donnie has groupies. So, it turns out, does lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins.

A former special agent tracks rumors of a dangerous new drug to a remote clinic in Florida, where the investigation brings him into the crosshairs of a powerful pharmaceutical company, and the race is on to expose a terrifying truth: it could rewrite the human genome.

Consummate adventurer Jeremy Spade arranges ‘life-changing trips’ in the deserts, mountains and jungles of Asia. His firm lets the world’s richest experience the world’s wildest parts, all from the comfort of an air-conditioned tent with a Michelin-class chef on call. After growing up in the US foster care system, Jeremy is fascinated and repelled by the billionaires. So he never suspects his own life will be changed by one of them.

Chaim Klein - a fearless Israeli Special Forces officer - has his hands full. After Klein unexpectedly finds the long-lost Ark of the Covenant, he must then search the globe for the Ten Commandments tablets. Klein must also confront and stop a consortium of Islamic states and terrorist organizations who are planning a simultaneous attack that would obliterate dozens of Western cities and Israel. Along the way, he comes across the mystical and awe-inspiring Sword of David.

Cuban-born Mercedes Spivey and her American husband, Nolan, win a five-day cruise to Cuba. Although the circumstances surrounding the prize seem a little suspicious to Mercedes, Nolan’s current jobless status and their desperate need to revamp their marriage make the decision a no-brainer. Once aboard, Mercedes is surprised to see two people she met through her ex-boyfriend Lorenzo: former University of Havana professor Selfa Sagarra and down-on-his-luck Spanish writer Javier Jurado. Even stranger: They also received a free cruise.

South Korea, 1970s: Sergeant First Class Cecil B. Harvey, a senior NCO in charge of Eighth Army’s classified documents, has long been a friend (willing or unwilling) to Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom. So when he goes missing with a top-secret document that even a glance at could get an officer court-martialed, Sueño and Bascom take it upon themselves to find him. Meanwhile, Overseas Observer reporter Katie Byrd Worthington is back to make life difficult for top army brass. When she lands in a Korean jail cell, Sueño and Bascom are sent to get her out.

The self-appointed saviour of Lagos' sex workers, Amaka may have bitten off more than she can chew this time as she finds herself embroiled in a political scandal. When a plane crash kills the state gubernatorial candidate, the party picks a replacement who is assured of winning the election: Chief Ojo. But Amaka knows the skeletons that lurk in Chief Ojo's closet, including what took place at the Harem, the secret sex club on the outskirts of Lagos that he frequents.

A dying man drags his oxygen machine into the office of Eric Besson, a lawyer in Paris' 13th arrondissement. The old man, an accountant, is carrying a dilapidated notebook full of meticulous investment records. For decades, he has been helping a cadre of dirty cops launder stolen money. The notebook contains his full confession - he's waited 50 years to make it, and now it can't wait another day.

Three American GIs have gone missing in different South Korean cities. Sergeants George Sueno and Ernie Bascom, agents for the Army CID, link the disappearances to a woman locally rumored to be a gumiho, a legendary 9000-tailed fox disguised as a woman. George suspects that the woman is no mythical creature, but a wealthy kidnapper who's good at covering her tracks. Scrambling to stay one step ahead of a psychotic mastermind, George realizes he will have to risk his life to discover the whereabouts of his fellow countrymen.

A murder in wartime Switzerland reveals Swiss complicity with the Nazis and profiteering during World War II. Billy and Kaz are sent to neutral Switzerland to investigate the murder of a Swiss banking official with ties to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Swiss banks are openly laundering gold "harvested" from concentration camps, and those that are profiting will do everything they can to protect their wealth and hide their dark secrets.

After decades as a commissario in his city on the River Po, Piero Trotti has retired. But his newfound peace is brief. An old friend calls him to Siena to give him urgent news: a known hit man has returned to Italy to kill Trotti. The former inspector must admit that he isn't entirely undeserving, as his mistaken accusations and failed gambles have cost innocent lives in the course of his investigations.

Three cell phones ring in an opulent London suite. The calls go unanswered, because their recipients are dead. Earlier that night, four old friends and lovers meet for a reunion dinner. Miko and Robert haven't seen each other in 10 years; Miko hates Robert for the money he's made with shady ethics. Unbeknownst to Miko, his wife, Veera, also slept with Robert the last time everyone was together. Robert's young trophy wife, Elise, has no old grudges to bear, but will be swept up in the murderous fray.

Ella Nygaard, 27, has been a ward of the state since she was seven years old, the night her father murdered her mother. She doesn't remember anything about that night or her childhood before it - but her body remembers. The PTSD-induced panic attacks she now suffers incapacitate her for hours - sometimes days - at a time and leave her physically and psychically drained.

Despite her checkered history with law enforcement, Johannesburg private investigator Jade de Jong is attempting to operate on the right side of the law, confining herself to low-profile cases. But her remarkably attractive new employer, Ryan Gillespie, has tasked her with finding a missing security official after a break-in at his nuclear energy plant. The target of her search is Carlos Botha, a skilled operative and a threat to national security.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers, mostly young women. Amid the rubble a bystander captures a heart-stopping image - a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-tory fall, and over her mouth a mask of fabric bearing the label of one of America's largest retailers, Presto Omnishops Corporation. When the photo goes viral, it fans the flames of a decades-old controversy about sweatshops, labor rights, and the ethics of globalization.

In Taiwan, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for prioritizing family. When 25-year-old Jing-nan's gangster uncle, Big Eye, asks a favor, Jing-nan can't exactly say no, especially because two goons are going to follow him around to make sure he gets it done right. The favor is this: Big Eye's 16-year-old daughter, Mei-ling, has a biker boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks and Big Eye wants Jing-nan to bring her to Taipei, away from the bad influences, and straighten her out.

It's late May 1944. Captain Billy Boyle is court-martialed on spurious charges of black-market dealings. Stripped of his officer's rank, reduced to private, and sentenced to three months' hard labor, Boyle is given an opportunity: He can avoid his punishment if he goes behind enemy lines to rescue a high-value Allied soldier.