Showing results by narrator "Scott Aiello" in All Categories

A medieval swindler gets caught with his proverbial pants down; a foolproof plan is put into place to pick up some cash via AI, until things take an unexpected and deadly turn; a legendary bodyguard is hired to protect precious cargo, but who will protect the cargo from him? The 14 brand-new stories deal with the complex idea of morality and will make listeners wonder what side is the right side.

This collection of two short stories and assorted short pieces were published previously, and gathered here for the first time. "The Perils of Effrijim" is loaded with quirky characters, a fast-paced story, and an adorable demon who just wants to be with his beloved. In "Cat Got Your Tongue", Joy Randall thought her honeymoon with husband Raphael was going to fulfill all her expectations, but almost immediately they run into a decades-old curse, a spurned ghostly first wife, and a long-dead randy Scottish Laird.

Recalling the great muckrakers of the past, an outraged team of America's best-selling writers unite to confront the disasters of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted years after they are proven innocent.

In Getting to Green, Frederic C. Rich argues that meaningful progress on urgent environmental issues can be made only on a bipartisan basis. Rich reminds us of American conservation's conservative roots and of the bipartisan political consensus that had Republican congressmen voting for, and Richard Nixon signing, the most important environmental legislation of the 1970s.

Working as a barmaid in the rough-and-tumble city of Half Town, Jancy the Quick keeps her true profession a secret but is poised to respond whenever injustice is found. In this instance injustice has found her. But this time Jancy may have bitten off more than she can chew.

The lives of Toronto teens Crystal and Becca Hatcher revolve around helping their mother out at the family's used bookstore, The Speckled Muse. It's a relatively uneventful after-school job, until an package arrives addressed to her mother, Julia. Thinking it's nothing more than run-of-the-mill inventory, Becca opens it and removes the book inside, unwittingly triggering an ancient magic and intertwining their fates with the powers that flow from the mysterious leather-bound book.

At age 26 Dave Cicirelli found himself at a crossroads. While his friends on Facebook appeared to have lives of nonstop accomplishments, his early adulthood felt disappointingly routine. So one October morning, Dave announced on Facebook that he was dropping everything and heading west. Many thought him brave - or crazy.

In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city - the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between. Lehane's own contribution - the longest story in the volume - is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader.

In the stories of Havana Noir, current and former residents of the city - some international sensations such as Leonardo Padura, others exciting new voices like Yohamna Despestre - uncover crimes of violence and loveless sex, of mental cruelty and greed, of self-preservation and collective hysteria.

The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances - of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir.

Step into Indian Country. Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martnez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.

"Readers of Brooklyn Noir will recall that its contents were labeled by neighborhood - Bay Ridge, Canarsie, Greenpoint, etc. We have chosen the same principle here, and the book's contents do a good job of covering the island, from C.J. Sullivan's Inwood and Charles Ardai's Upper East Side, to Justin Scott's Chelsea and Carol Lea Benjamin's Greenwich Village."

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

Bill Buford spends a wild night in the park; Jonathan Safran Foer envisions it as a tiny, transplanted piece of a mythical Sixth Borough; and Marie Winn answers definitively Holden Caulfield's question of where the ducks go when the park's ponds freeze over. There are bird sightings and fish sightings; Jackie Kennedy and James Brown sightings; and pieces by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, and Francine Prose. This vibrant collection presents Central Park in all its many-faceted glory, a 51-block swath of special magic.

Nils Hansen, Commissioner of Security Forces, must venture into the forbidding environs of Northworld, where previous explorations have mysteriously vanished.

In Northworld, a world of eight warring planes where weaponry is supreme, gods and men battle for control of the Matrix, a high-tech bridge through space and time, and participant Nils Hansen faces a difficult challenge.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

The finale of the second series of Deadlocked. The High Rollers are ready to take revenge against the forces aligned against them. A hard and long winter has forced them into hiding, but has also given them a respite from something else…something far worse than anything they’ve battled so far. The Noah Initiative has begun, and the land will soon be devastated by a new virus. The people lined up against the High Rollers are fighting among themselves as well, and everyone is at risk. This isn’t just a fight for survival anymore, it’s a fight to save the entire human race.

Waves of destruction have been unleashed from four sites of ancient forest, and scientists are unable to explain the instability in Earth’s mantle, nor the forces sweeping across the planet’s surface, changing everything.

In the penultimate book of the second series of Deadlocked, the High Rollers struggle to find their way after an enormous loss. They fell into the trap of a madman and the horde is closing in even as the town burns around them. Meanwhile, Hero is dealing with his contraction of what is known as the Tempest Strain, a virus capable of infecting any mammal. He knows that if the virus gets out, it could threaten every species on the planet, and he's ready to make the ultimate sacrifice if he has to.