Showing results by narrator "Johnny Heller" in All Categories

In late 1960s Oakland, young T-Bird Murphy's life is more miserable and frightening than most kids can imagine. His mother spends her time with the local Hell's Angels, drenched in alcohol and drugs. His father is a volatile ex-con. Struggling in a community plagued by gang violence and racial feuding, T-Bird picks up a trumpet and finds solace in the soulful wailing of jazz music.

A young woman found naked and stabbed to death in her apartment - it's the type of case that should be perfect for Stanley Hastings. Instead it's his nightmare. It's a sensational murder trial. The woman was the girlfriend of Hastings' boss, Richard Rosenberg, and the hotshot lawyer is charged with killing her. Now Richard's in court fighting for his life, and Stanley's out on the firing line trying to dig up some evidence in his favor. It won't be easy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning best-selling novelist Blake Tanner, former Spec Ops and longtime CIA, travels to Egypt, along with his team, to deliver a message to the Egyptian president of an assassination plot under the guise of an interview for the Associated Press. Blake and his team are soon caught up in a conspiracy that extends far beyond the briefing intel. Split up and on their own, Special Agent in Charge Maren Dey must make the most difficult decisions of her career, if she is to survive and keep her team alive.

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former congressman and youngest child of Senator Ted Kennedy, details his personal and political battle with mental illness and addiction, exploring mental health care's history in the country alongside his and every family's private struggles. A Common Struggle weaves together Kennedy's private and professional narratives, echoing Kennedy's philosophy that for him, the personal is political and the political personal.

Be afraid, be very afraid of Terrifying Tales, the sixth volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading. Eleven masters of suspense—Kelly Barnhill, Michael Buckley, Adam Gidwitz, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, Claire Legrand, Nikki Loftin, Daniel José Older, Dav Pilkey, R.L. Stine, and Rita...

When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside Oakland is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It's his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south - fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it's the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up - first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Sinclair is unable to link the victims to each other, and the killer is just getting started.

A frank and hilarious guide to every man's mind-numbing nemesis: Shopping.Guys, spent one too many Saturdays marooned at the mall? This indispensable sanity-saver exposes the hidden history and insidious psychology of shopping. Hint: it's crazy. Plus, this book cool-headedly guides you through the treacherous, credit card-melting mazes.

Stosh thought he was finished traveling back in time. But then Ralph Branca shows up in his room one night, begging for Stosh's help. In 1951, Branca pitched a ball to Bobby Thomson that would become the "Shot Heard Round the World", a home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants and changed the lives of Branca and Thomson forever. Branca says the Giants were cheating, and he needs Stosh to use his power with baseball cards to go back in time and set things right.

Thirteen-year-old Tyler loves spending the summer in New York with his cousin. Each day, they play baseball in a Central Park league. Tyler is a sharp hitter, so he hopes to become an All-Star. But he has a temper that is quicker than his swing. If he can't control it, he will lose his place on the team. There's trouble off the diamond, too. An awful accident has turned Tyler's dad into a distracted stranger. People tell Tyler that time will heal his father's wounds, but what about the hurt Tyler feels?

Uncle Pancho isn't really anybody’' uncle, but he's everybody's friend. He is also a good storyteller. All the neighborhood children love to hear him talk about growing up in a beautiful place called Mexico. Now Uncle Pancho is about to lose his house. The state wants to tear it down to make room for a new freeway.

Pittsburgh has recently (and more than once) been called the most livable city in America; yet the old image of smoky skies and steel mills spewing forth grit has never quite disappeared. Its history as a dirty industrial center is a part of its residents, a part of their toughness. The people of the steel city fight.

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.

On February 19, 2007, SSG Shilo Harris was patrolling an infamous southern Iraqi roadway when his Humvee was struck by an IED. Moments later, three members of his crew were dead and Shilo had sustained severe burns over 35 percent of his body, lost his ears and the skin off his face, and lost much of the use of his badly mangled fingers. This fiery moment was just the beginning of an arduous road laced with pain, emotional anguish, and much soul-searching.

For Jason, entering the seventh grade is like walking into a dangerous new world. Now that he’s in junior high school, he’s a small fish in a big pond stocked full of ninth-graders. It’s so scary that he won’t even go to the bathroom if there’s a ninth-grader in there - no matter how badly he has to go! But it isn’t all bad. He’s working on a model space station in shop class, and he’s beginning to notice things he never paid attention to before, like body hair - and girls. Especially one girl: The beautiful, hair-flicking cheerleader Debbie Breen.

Megin is 12; her brother Greg is 14. Megin is a slob; Greg is fastidious. They call each other Megamouth and Grosso. Between the two, the household is filled with their teasing and fighting. They are experts at the usual games of sibling rivalry and experts at inventing new ones. From carefully-planted cockroaches to creme doughnut fights, Megin and Greg's antics keep them in constant trouble. But even as they think up new ways to bug each other, they are also growing up.

Three terrorist attacks are launched from freighters against the United States. Only one fully succeeds, but in the blink of an eye all of the country west of the Rocky Mountains is transformed into the technological equivalent of the 18th century - no electricity, no computers, no electronics of anykind, or any of the amenities of modern life that depend on them. This is the story of ordinary and extraordinary people, high and low, who struggle to survive in a mortally wounded nation, as America's enemies within and without circle for the kill.

What defines Boston? Its history? Its landmarks? Its sports teams and shrines? Perhaps the question should be, who defines Boston? From Henry David Thoreau to Dennis Lehane, Boston has been beloved by many of America's greatest writers, and there is no better group of men and women to capture the heart and soul of the Hub. In Our Boston, editor Andrew Blauner has collected both original and reprinted essays from Boston-area writers past and present, all celebrating the city they love.

Today it is widely recognized that gay men played a prominent role in defining the culture of mid-20th-century America, with such icons as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson defining much of what seemed distinctly "American" on the stage and screen. Even though few gay artists were "out," their sexuality caused significant anxiety during a time of rampant anti-homosexual attitudes.

Jerome Alligator is so excited he can hardly stand it. The students from Swamp School are going on a camping trip this weekend. He plans to fish, swim, and hike for two whole days. Everything would be wonderful if only he didn’t have to share a tent with Buster Wormley. Buster likes to play jokes - like putting ants in someone’s lunch box. At the campground, he seems to be everywhere, playing not-so-funny tricks. Will this turn out to be Jerome’s worst weekend ever? When Jerome comes up with a clever solution to the class bully, the result surprises everyone - even himself.

Joe Archibald's pulp detective series features Willie Klump - a hapless private investigator who formerly worked for the prestigious Hawkeye Detective Agency - and his many misadventures. Here in "Skip Tracer Bullets," Willie is once again down on his luck. His fortunes change when a new case leads him to stolen diamonds…but Willie soon finds himself in over his head. One of Archibald's later stories, "Skip Tracer Bullets" was originally published in a 1944 issue of Popular Detective.