Showing results by narrator "William Dufris" in All Categories

Saigo City police detective David Silver and his partner Mel Burnett have been called to an unusual crime scene: a bed where four Elaki pouchlings have been smothered. The killer appears to be the babies' alien mother, who just shot herself and is in critical condition. But there are rumors the murders were politically motivated and carried out by the Izicho - the Elaki secret police. At the same time, cops are investigating other recent attacks against both humans and Elakis.

Homicide cop David Silver and his Elaki partner hunt an arsonist/killer who exterminates humans and aliens alike. Saigo City is caught in the grip of a savage murder spree by a perp who kills without compunction, then eliminates the evidence by torching the crime scenes. After a private residence is set on fire, killing two adults and four children, the hunt intensifies for this monster who seems intent on destroying both humans and Elakis.

An ocean of darkness lives in the journal of Philip Pinkerton. Ancient things with no place in our world are rising from the abyss. Ezekiel, the arrogant, mad god has called us into battle. Does he think we can't touch him, or does he know we can't? I wish I knew. The world's only hope lies in a forgotten weapon, the strength of our allies, and one necromancer of questionable ancestry. Yeah, this is going to end well.

The city of Maras-Sund has stood for more than 20 years - two lands joined together by a magical bridge the Marasai used to conquer the Sundain. But the man known as Issel has magic of his own - an ability to manipulate water - which he will use to free his people. He finds an ally in Jendre, the daughter of a general in Maras's army and a woman with her own vendetta against the regime. Her sister is held captive along with others whose life essences power the magical bridge between her land and Sund.

In the city known as Maras-Sund, an uneasy peace threatens to unravel between two cultures. And a young man and woman will find their own destinies: one determined to hold on to power and supremacy, the other struggling for survival - and freedom.

The crew of the spaceship Juno expected to find a fertile planet ready for colonization. Instead they discovered a fiery grave and a space station filled with corpses. What had happened here? A natural disaster...or an alien weapon capable of destroying entire worlds? What were they willing to do, and what price were they willing to pay, to prevent another disaster?

Some things can never be undone. The horrors I've defeated - or even caused - with my own hands...they are nothing compared to what's coming. Philip Pinkerton has brought his madness upon my family, my own blood. His army of necromancers is on the move, harbingers of a great darkness. I fear the war has begun...and damn, I don't get paid enough for this.

Philip, Zola's boyfriend from 150 years ago, is not nearly as dead as we thought. I really wish he was. Not only has he kidnapped Zola, but he's raising an army to scour humanity from the earth. Hopefully the local werewolf pack will help. What could possibly go wrong?

Mystery sensation Pelecanos pens the lead story and edits this groundbreaking collection of stories detailing the seedy underside of the nation's capital. This is not an anthology of ill-conceived and inauthentic political thrillers. Instead, in D.C. Noir, pimps, whores, gangsters, and con-men run rampant in zones of this city that most never hear about.

Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation.

From the introduction to Philadelphia Noir: "America's first great city, first capital, and first industrial metropolis contained from the beginning the mix of poor workers and elite culture, of ethnic enclaves and religious intolerance, of easy skullduggery and flesh-pot possibilities, that led Lincoln Steffens in 1903 to famously rule it 'corrupt and contented'."

From the introduction by David L. Ulin: "For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when then summer trade began."

From the introduction by Les Standiford: "The truth is that Miami, though naturally lovely, is a frontier town, perched on the border between the known and the rarely before experienced. The poet Richard Hugo once said that the natural place for the writer was on the edge, and 'edge' might well be the definitive word when it comes to this city... We are not only on the edge of the continent, we are to this country what New York was in Ellis Island's heyday, what the West Coast was in the middle of the 20th century.

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

For generations, bitter old Andy Mattson terrified the children of Hillside and puzzled his adult neighbors. How did the scowling old codger, who seemed to spend his life stroking his cat on the front porch, support himself? How did he pass the days? And why did he die such a gruesome death? The police find Andy dead on his sofa, covered in blood, eyes wide with fear. The most likely suspect is the dead man’s cat, a howling beast that resembles a trapped badger.

When Cherokee burial remains are unearthed on the site of a local cemetery's expansion, Barry Clayton, part-time deputy and full-time undertaker, finds his dual occupations colliding. Then, during the interment of the wife of one of Gainesboro's most prominent citizens, Cherokee activist Jimmy Panther leads a protest. Words and fists fly.

My name is Damian Valdis Vesik. I am a necromancer, an ability feared and hated as much as the powers my master and I set ourselves against. We've vanquished many evils, but now something is releasing an old darkness, forcing us to hunt an enemy beyond anything I've faced before. I was already busy enough with vampires, fairies, witches, Watchers, weddings, and... damn, I need a vacation.

Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind - it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked.

Andre de Laurent is the second son of an extremely wealthy family, which basically means he'll always be number two. That is, until his mother's uncle dies and leaves him a multi-billion-dollar fortune. So what's the trouble? Andre has 60 days to take a wife, and he'll have to remain married for one year or forfeit the inheritance to distant relatives - who are hell-bent on claiming the inheritance as their own.

Venice: Ethan Gage has escaped after surviving the naval battle of Trafalgar. His plan: To circumvent the French Empire and rescue his wife, Astiza, and son, Harry, from imprisonment by a ruthless mystic who seeks revenge for disfigurement, and from an evil dwarf alchemist who experiments with the occult on Prague's Golden Lane. Using death as his ruse, Gage seeks an unlikely ally in the Jewish Napoleonic soldier Gideon Mandel, who saves Ethan's life at Austerlitz, and Gideon's father, Aaron.