Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Suspense

College admissions season at Seattle's Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious. But when Stanford alerts the school it's allotting only one spot to EBA for their incoming class, three mothers discover the competition is more cutthroat than they could have imagined.

Criminal defense lawyer Cash McCahill pleads for his life before a jury of one: La Tigra, the lethal leader of a drug cartel. To avoid ending up as an appetizer for her pet tiger, he promises to defend the case of her choice and win it. When La Tigra calls in the chit, Cash has no way out of cartel hell, except death. Lose at trial, and he will pay with his life.

Joe Noose knows what fear looks like. He sees it in the eyes of his new friends - a dozen trail-hardened cattle men who don't scare easily. It's not the 500-mile trek across treacherous Montana territory that's got them spooked. It's not the 3,000 heads of cattle they've got to wrangle either. They're afraid that someone on this drive - one of their own team - is a serial killer. Five wranglers are already dead. Every man is a suspect. And the woman rancher in charge is paying Joe Noose to root out the evil on this cursed cattle drive - by riding alongside the killer.

A hard-working daddy's girl, Precious Cummings is sure she's going to college. But when her father is murdered, she discovers he lied for years about money they never had - and hid a shocking family secret. Shattered and lost, she starts hangin' with savvy hood chick Keisha - and falls hard for DaVon, LA's most powerful drug dealer. As his new lady, Precious soon gets the best of every luxurious thing - and fast learns the ropes of her lover's lethal hustle.

Viv has finally gotten up the courage to introduce Charlie to her extended family and brings him to their luxurious cottage on Lake Geneva. But the visit gets off to a rocky start when Hap, an old flame of Viv's, unexpectedly turns up. Charlie clearly feels threatened by Hap, but Vivian is sure that it will all blow over - until Hap turns up dead in the game room, with Charlie standing over him, covered in blood and holding a knife. Viv knows that Charlie couldn't have killed Hap, but how can she prove it and get him released from prison?

Mississippi charmer Abner Mason is a professional gambler and a regular on the Delta Jack, a luxurious riverboat. But luck hasn't exactly been going Mason's way. After a disastrous loss at the tables, he owes an impossible debt to the most powerful man on the ship: mysterious, ruthless Cam Greeley. And Greeley's willing to do whatever it takes to get his fortune back - even threaten Mason's life. Now Mason has a single night to raise all the funds to pay off his debt by completing whatever ominous jobs Greeley has waiting for him. He just has to make it through alive....

The life of a cowboy suits Thalis Christie just fine. A puncher for the Crescent H in Texas, he loves what he does and is damn good at it too. He doesn't even mind being away from his family - he's got good friends to keep him from getting too homesick. That is, until his folks write, imploring him to hunt down his brother, Myles, who's been shot while prospecting in the Black Hills. Thalis sets out to do his family duty and find his little brother - still alive, he hopes.

Most days, successful divorce attorney Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter. The world knows her as a survivor, but that impression would change if everyone knew her secret. Chef Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging late one night and finds he's saved Rebecca Lindt, the divorce attorney who helped his ex-wife, his simple life gets a lot more complicated. The pair soon finds themselves helping each other in life's endeavors.

The serene beauty of West Texas's Big Bend National Park is shattered when four hikers are brutally ambushed by a sniper. Only one survives to report the murders. When investigators come up with nothing, they're left wondering if this is a single incident - or the beginning of a rampage. One week later, Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke drives his 3500 Dodge Dually into the park, determined to unearth the truth. Before he knows it, he's in the same sniper's crosshairs. A drug and human smuggling cartel has lured him to remote backcountry, looking for payback for an old grudge.

Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. When Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash - fifty thousand dollars, to be exact.

Dawn and Reese Spencer just can't get ahead. Between her desperate desire to start a family and his gambling debts, they barely keep afloat, even with well-paying Norfolk International port jobs. But their calculating co-worker has the perfect plan: help him smuggle containers of precious, illegal - human - cargo past US Customs. Reese persuades Dawn that no one will get hurt. Then several immigrants turn up dead on arrival. Now the Feds and cold-blooded loan sharks are closing in, as the real brains behind the operation start killing off loose ends.

Coming-of-age meets coming-of-middle-age in this tender exploration of what it means to reinvent yourself. A teenage girl runs away from a life of boredom and poverty, with dreams of becoming a smoke jumper. A middle-aged mother escapes to the mountains to explore her artistic side. Thanks to a snowstorm, Ivy and Mary Ellen find themselves trapped together in an isolated home in the Poconos. Now lying to each other, and themselves, they must confront what kind of people they want to be and - when a near-fatal accident forces them to face the truth - who they really are.

When Claudette McPhearson died, she left eight foster children to fend for themselves after they discovered the truth about her secret life. She was the leader of the Syndicate, a criminal enterprise that had a stronghold on the underworld. Much to her children's chagrin, it was up to one of them to step up and take the lead.

A successful businesswoman who used to play by the rules. A cautious single mother who never took chances. A gorgeous rebel out of money and almost out of time. Each loves a man unjustly sentenced to long prison terms by former prosecutor Hammond Grey. They've tried every legal remedy to get justice-only to see Hammond climb ever higher up the political ladder and secure himself behind power and privilege. So when Kim, Jayda, and Harley meet in a support group, they've got no options left. It's time for them to launch Plan B.

Thad Taylor is no one's idea of a fine man. Usually drunk and shiftless, he's disapproved of by most - especially his father. But when his father doesn't return from a trip across the Kansas plains, Thad is the only one who can search for him. And he's far from ready for the ordeal. Because his father is already dead. He has fallen victim to the bloody Benders - a demented family who lures travelers into their cabin way station only to rob and brutally murder them.

Kathi Ellison is an English literature major at the University of California in Berkeley, living with her boyfriend off-campus. She is also the daughter of a candidate for the US Senate and his wife, a role that could affect her life should her father win the election. But before she can consider her future, Kathi must first come to terms with her past. A car accident when she was four years old killed her mother and left her in a coma for several days. The migraines and nightmares that plagued her as a child have recently returned with a vengeance.

Merry Folger is more than ready for a romantic vacation with her fiancé, Peter, when fate - and her police chief father - intervenes. Twenty-one-year-old Jay Santorski never should have drowned in the frigid waters off the Nantucket shore. What was the athlete, Harvard scholar, and part-time scalloper doing out alone in the storm-churned bay? At her father's insistence - and over Peter's objections - Merry returns to the island to investigate.

Rancher Ty Farraday's hunt for stray cattle takes a turn for the worse when he discovers a shallow grave and the body of wealthy Alton Winstead, the owner of the Double-Cross Ranch. Ty's first frantic thoughts are of Winstead's widow, Sue-Ellen, who picked Alton over him. Unfortunately, she chose poorly. Alton masterminded a crime and left his helpers to swing for it. Hungry for revenge, the murderous headcases have overrun the Double-Cross and are holding Sue-Ellen prisoner.

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.

It's 1983. Vancouver is on the precipice of transforming itself from a dirty little town to a blandly sophisticated big city. Convertibles cruise beneath runty palm trees, and the air is filled with the delicious tang of ocean breezes, cheeseburgers, and pot smoke. In this fast and furious crime novel set in the midst of a long West Coast summer, an Eastern European immigrant named Irina absconds with a shipment of drugs and $300,000 in dirty money, setting into motion a wild chain reaction.