Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Private Investigators

Being an undercover poison taster for the rich and famous might sound glamorous, but for Isobel Avery it means stomaching bad clients and even worse coffee. The one side of the job that lives up to expectations is the money. Which is just as well for Izzy, since she needs an awful lot of it. Who knew when she made a lifelong commitment to a man that it would be one year living with him and the rest of her life paying for it?

When a 75-year-old woman is killed in an apparently random car accident, it looks like a simple hit-and-run - until the car is linked to an Asian organized crime syndicate. Undercover operative Jack Taggart, who is called in to investigate, quickly identifies a top crime boss as the perpetrator, but he must still figure out how to infiltrate the man's inner circle. Taggart approaches a young Chinese woman on the fringes of the syndicate and tries to coerce her into becoming his informant.

What could be more innocent than watching old movies? For Neil Catalin, a wealthy man with a happy home, old-fashioned pictures were a hobby that became an obsession. But he wasn’t watching The Wizard of Oz. Crime movies were his passion, the sort where life is cheap and death is free, and Catalin sank himself into them as an escape from the stresses of suburbia. Now he has disappeared, and his wife believes the clue may be in his collection of gruesome classics.

As a young girl in Baltimore, Kiernan O’Shaughnessy lived for gymnastics, where strict discipline and endless practice kept her centered even as her life fell apart. Her idol was the late stuntman Greg Gaige. Famous for pulling off the moves no one else could, and for scorning safety equipment, Gaige was the one man O’Shaughnessy truly admired. When a young gymnast dies performing Gaige's world-famous stunt, Kiernan suspects foul play.

On screen, Sandy Broderick is everything a newscaster is supposed to be. He has a deep voice, a 10,000-watt smile, and the God-given ability to banter with weathermen until his ears fall off. But when the cameras turn off, he has a private problem: His 20-year old son, Bud, has disappeared. Amos Walker is going to find him. The boy and his junkie girlfriend are both gone, and Broderick is terrified - not for his son, but for his career. The station is about to do an exposé on drugs in Detroit, and the newscaster doesn’t want his boy’s addict girlfriend to get in the way of his Pulitzer.

Nothing - not even murder - keeps Pauline Sokol off the case. Pauline Sokol, ex-RN turned medical insurance fraud investigator, finds herself embroiled in a scam at a weight loss clinic in the scenic New Mexico desert. As if being undercover isn't bad enough, she's not allowed to eat chocolate, she lives in a body suit that weighs a ton, and her roommate turns out to be a mysteriously hot guy! Nearly finished with what seems to be an open-and-shut case, Pauline befriends a woman who is an undercover reporter, also interested in the goings-on at the weight loss clinic.

Hattie Evans, a retired schoolteacher, isn’t one to fuss. When her husband drops dead of a heart attack, she does her best to move on without too many tears. After all, Jerome was 70 years old. But an anonymous note, asserting that her husband was murdered, shakes her resolve, and she seeks out help. The police are useless, save that they send her to Fred Carver - a former Orlando cop who turned PI when a bullet shattered his left knee. Her case takes Carver into the depths of Solartown: an old-age mecca where 70 is the new 40, golf carts are the only way to get around, and death from natural causes is nowhere to be found.

Private eye Fred Carver investigates the slaughter of an ex-cop, the murder of a man who was found stuffed to the gills with cocaine, and other crimes.

It spite of the tightest high-tech security ever conceived, billionaire Jordan Lime is savagely killed by a weapon that tears him apart limb by limb with grim, laserlike efficiency. An army unlike any other has fired its first shot. In its ranks are the world's most vicious killers, fortified by a super-advanced arsenal against which there is no defense. It is a madman's plan to conquer the earth by destroying it. He will unleash the devastating powers of the atom and let the cataclysmic wrath of nature do the rest.

At a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane, 84 of the most dangerous psycopaths alive have vanished from their cells without a trace. Leading their ranks: the Candy Man - the most ruthlessly brilliant serial killer ever in captivity. The only way to catch a crazed killer is to think like one. Rogue agent Jared Kimberlain - the most dangerous man who ever worked for the forces of good - is the only man driven enough to do the job. Or die trying.

The tabloids were full of it. Constance Thayer, after a night of clubbing, drinks, and drugs, had taken an automatic pistol from the collection of her industrialist husband Doyle Thayer Jr. and emptied it into his back, as he lay naked and unconscious in their Iroquois Heights home. The news of Constance Thayer's X-rated past breathed new life into the scandal for another month. Walker's job was to gather enough dirt on the late Mr. Thayer to make his widow look clean by comparison. What he found was a monstrous magnate, a dubious corpse, and a gang of country-style gunrunners.

Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar - a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new employer doesn't take "no" for an answer when he offers a job opportunity. Unfortunately, the only clue to Marla's whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that clearly proves that she's become part of a world that disgusts even her criminal guardian....

Hiram Gottschalk, owner of the Palm Beach shop Parrots Unlimited, fears for his life. First, he finds a photo of himself and his deceased wife slashed to ribbons; then, a Mass card with his name on it is taped inside of his closet door; now, someone has wrung the neck of his beloved pet bird. In desperation, he turns to McNally & Son for a private investigation. McNally meets with Gottschalk, along with his client's cursing parrot.

When two teenagers - Johannes and Mari - are found murdered inside their school, in the small Norwegian village of Fredheim, the finger is soon is pointed at 18-year-old Even, whose relationship with Mari ended just before she died. Mari was writing a story for the school newspaper about Even and his dad, who died in a car accident 10 years earlier. But was it really an accident? And had Mari uncovered information that someone was willing to commit murder to protect?

Many people had reasons for killing Galen, a big Greek with too much money and too great a liking for young black girls. But there are complications - like a drug addict, a disappearing suspect, and the fact that Coffin Ed's daughter is up to her neck in the whole explosive business.

Isobel Avery is on her second assignment as an undercover poison taster for Los Angeles's rich and famous. And she's actually enjoying herself. Until her sweet, agoraphobic client mysteriously leaves the safety of his apartment and winds up dead. When crucial evidence goes missing, investigator Connor Stiles will need Izzy's inside knowledge to help track down the killer. But despite three months of absence to make Connor's heart grow fonder, he doesn't seem pleased to be working with her again.

That way. It’s such a simple request that Nate doesn’t think twice about turning down the path Liz suggests. But when he finds the body, he realizes he should have known better. Liz has the habit of pointing him toward those who need his help, even if they're no longer living. His deceased girlfriend isn’t the only one pushing him to solve the woman’s murder. After his best friend Jar discovers the woman’s true identity, she insists they need to investigate. Nate is not as sure. The police are on the case, after all, and if he and Jar intervene, they'd only get in the way.

Nate doesn’t want to listen. He’s between missions and just wants to relax, not to travel hundreds of miles and hunt for the driver of the car that hit someone he doesn’t even know. But ignoring the call is not an option. What Nate had hoped would be a simple mission turns into something much more sinister, when he discovers a wide-reaching evil, festering in a small Northern California town. To confront it, he will need all the skills he’s learned working in the shadow world.

Los Angeles, 1986. A group of right-wing Christians has put an initiative on the November ballot to allow health officials to force people with HIV into quarantine camps - and it looks like it’s going to pass. Rios, now living in LA, agrees to be counsel for a group of young activists who call themselves QUEER. QUEER claims to be committed to peaceful civil disobedience. But when one of its members is implicated in the bombing of an evangelical church that kills its pastor, Rios finds himself with a client suddenly facing the death penalty.

With their jobs in the spy world on suspension, all Nate and Jar wanted was a little vacation time out of the city. But not even two days on the road, their plans are hijacked by a teen’s cry. What starts out as helping the kid out of a tricky situation leads Nate and Jar into a dark world of fire and hate, of greed and corruption. As much as they might want to continue on their way, neither would ever do so. Because helping those who aren’t in a position to help themselves is Nate and Jar’s specialty.