Showing results by narrator "John McLain" in All Categories

Renowned philanthropist and billionaire Paul Parnell had reached the pinnacle of monetary success, but not without cost. Had he put too much emphasis on work and spent too little time with his family? Determined to leave something far more valuable than money to his six children, Paul instructs his lawyers to create an unusual last will and testament. This unorthodox will, which stipulates that the lion's share of Paul's two-billion-dollar estate be given to the heirs who pass "the test", was Paul's last hope of creating a lasting legacy by inspiring his children to give back to society and embrace a code of moral values.

>Blood, Steel & Canvas: The Asian Odyssey of a Fighter is a story about fighting on two levels: the American lawyer author’s improbable career as Asia’s oldest amateur boxer and his fight to overcome colon cancer and its consequences. Through his friendships with boxers in the Philippines and Thailand, his efforts (not always successful) to learn the languages and his delight in experiencing local cultures, he sets an example for other expatriates who have the great fortune to live and work overseas.

It's about as noir as you can get. In a bleak Texas prison, Franklin Royce, an alcoholic doctor, is given the odious task of administering inmate Bobby Mencken's last "high." The young black man on the other end of the needle seems remarkably indifferent to his fate - but Royce is convinced that the convicted killer was innocent. When Royce's marriage crumbles, he takes off for Dallas to search for the real killer.

A 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys destroyed the East Coast Railway, killed five-hundred people and blew away the town of Islamorada. Lost in that storm was Mathew Kriegel, a finance director for the railroad, and one and a quarter million dollars in gold. Now newly minted private investigators Skip More and James Lessor, of More Or Less Investigations have been hired to find that lost treasure. Fighting off competitors, scuba diving, digging in a spooky cemetery and almost getting killed is only part of their job. Skip and James have stumbled onto the biggest most dangerous adventure of their lives.

Heather and Mack McKay seem to have it all: wealth, a dream house in the suburbs, and two adorable children along with the nannies to raise them. But their marriage has lost its savor: She is a frustrated writer and he longs for a cultural trophy to hang on his belt. During a chance encounter in LA, Mack invites exiled writer Zoltan Barbu - once lionized as a political hero, now becoming a has-been - to live with him and his wife in their luxurious home. The plan should provide Heather with literary companionship, Mack with cultural cachet, and Zoltan himself with a pastoral environment in which to overcome his writer’s block and produce a masterpiece.

Tom Judah, a former Marine recently discharged from the military after serving three tours of combat in the killing zones of Iraq. Jessica Spire, a young woman trying to reinvent her life after fleeing a callous and loveless marriage. Scars of the Prophet is a dynamic story of what happens when fate and destiny collide in an aggressive world of pawns and broken kings. Tom Judah wanted to fit back into society and forget the horrific necessities of a war his conscious was still fighting.

In this critically acclaimed novel, Harry Rent finds himself young and single and lost after the passing of his wife. Although numbed by his life's unexpected turn, Harry becomes fixated on Molly, an obsidian-haired, 22-year-old waitress. Meanwhile, Harry is forced to fend off Clare, his sister-in-law, who is convinced that Harry is somehow responsible for her sister's untimely death. At once deeply moving and darkly comedic, Harry, Revised is an extraordinary novel about the measure of a man's worth by a wonderful, emerging talent.

A provocative history that reveals how guns - not abortion, race, or religion - are at the heart of America's cultural divide. Gunfight promises to be a seminal work in its examination of America's four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. Adam Winkler uses the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, as a springboard for a groundbreaking historical narrative.

Manfred, a surly mountaineer recently abandoned by his wife, rents the upstairs apartment in his home in the Dolomites to Marina, a woman from the city, and her difficult young son. Deeply suspicious by nature, especially of women, Manfred spies obsessively on Marina, in whose shortcomings as a mother he finds resonances of his own mother’s desertion of him in childhood. When Marina’s frustration over her son’s refusal to eat or sleep leads her to harm the child, Manfred steps in, and the silent power struggle between them escalates. Yet Manfred’s attraction to Marina is as powerful as his distrust.

It’s the business of saving lives. Miracle Medicines goes behind the scenes of the pharmaceutical industry and into the high-security laboratories to tell the stories of the men and women - chemists, physiologists, medical and clinical researchers, engineers - who have chosen to toil for years in the lab in order to transform scientific theories into new lifesaving medicines. You’ll witness the day-to-day labors, victories and defeats of the dedicated professionals who are waging a war against the diseases that still plague mankind.

For small-town, Iowa lawyer, Sam McCain, the year 1965 is not a sweet one. His father is gravely ill. His elitist boss is just coming out of rehab. And, the brilliant lawyer he hoped to start a relationship with has gone back to her husband. Still, McCain tries to enjoy himself during the town's Labor Day weekend party, reuniting with several old friends - until two of them are murdered for what seems to be a motive buried in the past...

"Three years ago, when my son was still in college and my daughter lived across the Bay, my wife packed her car with her clothes and things, discussed with me her reasons for taking half the savings and, after a farewell which I cannot recall verbatim, she left..." In this short story, which won a Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, a retired schoolteacher in his sunset years, gets his first glimpse at the failures in his life, cracking a window open to everything and everyone outside.

Mason Dupre has resigned himself to never being loved. Silver Whitney has fallen under a spell - the spell of graceful, antebellum Rosewood Plantation. But it is the spell cast long ago over Mason Dupre that prevents Silver from writing the book she has traveled hundreds of miles to complete. Mardi Gras, the interference of a ghost, and the heavy New Orleans air swirl around Silver and Mason as they struggle to solve and understand the mystery that keeps them both bound to the plantation and a vengeful curse.

The clock is ticking down to an attack on America’s most vulnerable natural resource: Water. Our nation’s water resources are high on terrorist target lists, but low on America’s consciousness. Water sources are largely unprotected, providing open access to any enemy with chemicals and biotoxins.

Is the five-second rule for real? Will eating carrots improve your eyesight? Is your cookware a health hazard? Do spicy foods cool you down? Has your grandmother been lying to you all these years? No, no, no, no, and...probably. In this entertaining and informative reference guide, award-winning cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough take on more than 100 popular kitchen myths and dish up answers to all your burning questions about food science and lore.

Annie Hamilton and Major David Grainger had a conflicted past as mis-matched spouses, and a conflicted present as separated parents. David saw the problem as her drive to be successful, and not fitting into the mold of an Air Force officer’s wife. Annie blamed their breakup on his unfortunate habit of bringing his dictatorial nature into their relationship as if she were in his squadron.... Can they ever learn to accept the other as they are? Will Annie let stubborn pride cause her to lose the only man she has ever loved? The real question for Annie is: does she take this man…again?

When two alien cats are stranded in a U.N. communication station in Earth orbit, they're captured by saboteurs who work for an industrial magnate. But the telepathic cats easily escape their captors once they've landed on Earth. Now they must help derail the industrial mogul's plan to bring down the entire space industry.

An assassin takes aim at a Presidential candidate during a primary stump speech. The instant he pulls the trigger, the outcome of the election is irrevocably changed. But Democrat Teddy Lodge, an upcoming media sweetheart, isn't killed. His wife is. As a result, Lodge emerges as the man to beat and the greatest threat to the incumbent President, Morgan Taylor.

It's official: stumbling, bumbling James Lessor and Skip Moore are licensed private investigators. Now, that's some scary stuff.

It could take time to get Moore or Less investigations off the ground, so James takes a job with a traveling carnival show.But this show has a dubious reputation, having had a string of accidents and at least one death in the past year.When they're hired to investigate what's caused the carnival chaos, James and Skip set into motion a dizzying, roller coaster chain of events.

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?