Showing results by narrator "Andy Caploe" in All Categories

1945: While liberating a concentration camp, an American medical unit uncovers something beneath a body-laden trench. Sixty years later, the survivors of that unit are systematically murdered because of what they saw. The Present: Enter former Palestinian-American detective Ben Kamal and his Israeli counterpart, Danielle Barnea. Working for the United Nations, Ben and Danielle are forced to return to the Middle East to investigate a massacre in a Palestinian village.

In the early 19th century passenger pigeons accounted for 25 to 40 percent of North America’s birds, traveling in flocks so massive as to block out the sun for hours. Although adults weighed only twelve ounces, they nested and roosted in the millions, destroying large oaks as if hit by hurricanes. Their favorite foods were the seeds and nuts of beech, chestnuts, and other forest trees, but they also raided farmers’ buckwheat, wheat, corn, and rye crops.

In Odessa, the greatest port on the Black Sea, a dream of cosmopolitan freedom inspired geniuses and innovators. Yet here too was death on a staggering scale, as World War II brought the mass murder of Jews carried out by the city's Romanian occupiers. Odessa is an elegy for the vibrant, multicultural tapestry of which a thriving Jewish population formed an essential part, as well as a celebration of the survival of Odessa’s dream in a diaspora reaching all the way to Brighton Beach.

The strange and haunted place called World has been a land divided between the stability of Anchor and the chaos of Flux - a land of near magic, where reality yields to madness. It is in this universe that courageous men and women battle treachery, rebellion, and hellish forces to establish a New Eden.

Mervyn, wizard and Fluxlord, leader of the Nine Who Guard, faces the ultimate threat of the opposing Seven Who Wait: the opening of the Hellgates to World. Closed more than 2,000 years ago, they are portals to unknowable danger and, perhaps, great power. Mervyn must gather the shattered forces of guardianship, dispersed and reeling after the battle with Coydt....

The Klondike gold rush, which occurred between 1896 and 1899, was one of the strangest outbreaks of "gold fever" ever to take place. With news of California's rush still fresh in their minds, thousands of men with get-rich-quick dreams hurried to stake out claims in the Yukon. But they did not count on the murderous weather...or the severe mountain passes that protected the gold.

Fleeing the scene of his latest mission, Val Con yos'Phelium finds himself saving the life of ex-mercenary Miri Robertson, a young Tarren on the run from interplanetary assassins. Thrown together by circumstances, Val Con and Miri struggle to elude their enemies and stay alive without slaying each other - or surrendering to the unexpected passion that flares between them.

The definitive account of Louis Armstrong - his life and legacy - during the most creative period of his career. Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the acclaimed Louis Armstrong's New Orleans, following the story of the great jazz musician into his most creatively fertile years in the 1920s and early 1930s, when Armstrong created not one but two modern musical styles. Brothers wields tremendous skill in making the connections between history and music accessible to everyone.

The Team: Financed by a billionaire philanthropist, this elite team - a soldier, an historian, a computer whiz, a weapons expert, and a thief - is tasked with finding the world's most legendary treasures. The Mission: Fearing a German victory in WWI, the Romanian government signed a deal with Russia to protect the country's treasures. In 1916, two trains full of gold and the most precious possessions of the Romanian state - paintings, jewelry, and ancient artifacts - were sent to the underground vaults of the Kremlin....

The treasure: At the end of the 13th century, Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan gave an Italian merchant unfettered access to his kingdom. The traveler was Marco Polo, and his journey would become legendary. Aided by a special passport that protected him throughout the land, Polo amassed unbelievable wealth and hid it before his return to Italy. To this day, the location of his treasure remains a mystery.

Like many of us, journalist David K. Randall never gave sleep much thought. That is, until he began sleepwalking. One midnight crash into a hallway wall sent him on an investigation into the strange science of sleep. In Dreamland, Randall explores the research that is investigating those dark hours that make up nearly a third of our lives.

Thomas Phillips knows he's losing his mind. He's been losing it for as long as he can remember. And yet, when a strange old man asks him to consider that he, out of everyone in the world, knows the real truth, Thomas' life begins to spiral out of control. He loses interest in his job and is fired. He refuses his wife's suggestion of psychiatric care, and she leaves him. In the end, Thomas is alone.

June 1, 2288 - Europe's first starship, the EASS Galileo, launches on its maiden voyage to investigate an unidentified object, code-named Spindrift, which is traveling outside our solar system. An object that may be alien in origin. The Galileo disappears soon after...February 1, 2344 - The Galileo's shuttle returns to Earth carrying three surviving expedition members, who still appear to be the same age they were when they departed. They report that they have, indeed, made contact with an extraterrestrial race.

A year after the devastating events of Not Even Past, Jackson Donne has gone into hiding in the forest of Vermont. Under the guise of Joe Tennant, Donne has been recovering - and even enjoying his life up north. Until one of the few friends he's made goes missing. Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, someone is killing ex-cops - the ones who Donne used to work with.

A hit and run. Simple as that. And suddenly harmless old Gerry Figuroa is lying dead on the asphalt. New Jersey cop turned private investigator Jackson Donne sure as hell doesn't want to investigate his drinking buddy's death, but he's made a promise that leaves him no choice. And before long, he's drawing uncomfortably close to a murderer.

Finally Jackson Donne has it figured out. After giving up on the private investigation business, he's looking toward the future - one that involves getting married to Kate Ellison. Kate's got him focused on living the good life: planning the wedding, finishing college, and anticipating a romantic Hawaiian honeymoon. Until an anonymous email with a link and an old picture of him on the police force shows up in his mailbox. And once Donne clicks the link, nothing else in his life matters.

An Argentine playboy races down the darkened alleys of Buenos Aires, a German on his tail. He darts into a steamy tango hall and begs one of the dancers for refuge, but his pursuer is unshakable. The German leaves with the scrap of information that had been destined for the Americans. The playboy was a spy for the Allies, known as Raven.

The action begins when Constance Burdette, the newly appointed American ambassador to the European office of the United Nations - and the President's secret lover - is cut down by machine gun fire in a bloody, well-planned strike against her chauffeured limousine in Geneva. The three assassins, continue their attack by stalking the late Ambassador's brother, Thomas Madison Starring, America's leading shipbuilder and owner of an international shipping fleet.

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'."

Picking America's best presidents is easy. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt usually lead the list. But choosing the nation's worst presidents requires more thought. In Star-Spangled Men, respected presidential biographer Nathan Miller puts on display those leaders who were abject failures as chief executive. With pointed humor and a deft hand, he presents a rogues' gallery of the men who dropped the presidential ball, and sometimes their pants as well.