Showing results by narrator "Stefan Rudnicki" in All Categories

Crime fiction readers know Quarry - the ruthless killer for hire from Max Allan Collins' acclaimed novels - but where did Quarry's story start? For first time ever, the best-selling author of Road to Perdition takes us back to the beginning, revealing the never-before-told story of Quarry's first job: infiltrating a college campus and eliminating a professor whose affair with one of his beautiful young students is the least of his sins.

As Chief Medical Officer aboard the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, Andrej Koscuisko's duty is to care for his shipmates; as Inquisitor, he must extract confessions and administer punishment. But while the doctor takes pride in his healing skills, the torturer knows only self-loathing. As the planet Burkhayden prepares for the arrival of its new governor, a brutal attack on a Nurail slave woman by a ship's officer sets in motion a chain of events that culminates in murder.

On the celebrated Greek island of Mykonos, a legendary nightclub owner is found in his home…bludgeoned to death. In his lifetime he had helped transform Mykonos from an obscure, impoverished Aegean island into a world-renowned summertime playground for the world's rich and powerful, which made the Mykonian people some of the wealthiest in Greece. All evidence points to obvious killers, but the murder has put into play some long-hidden, politically explosive secrets and drawn a dangerous foreign investor to the island paradise.

A stand-alone novel set in Susan R. Matthews's critically acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, Angel of Destruction focuses on Bench officer Garol Vogel and his attempts to make peace with the Langsarik people-the people his own Judiciary drove into a life of piracy.

We all know Shakespeare’s classic ghost story—the young prince Hamlet’s dead father appears to him, demanding vengeance upon Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, who has usurped the throne and, to add insult to injury, married Hamlet’s mother.

Set in the critically-acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, The Devil and Deep Space features listener favorite hero Andrej Koscuisko caught up in a conspiracy between political backstabbing and military corruption....

The title work in this collection of ten short stories and poems is widely regarded as the most famous of Edgar Allan Poe’s writings. This unsettling tale in verse tells of a man’s slow descent into madness as he mourns the loss of his lover. The mysterious visit of a talking raven that utters only one word sparks the man’s steady decline.

Nolan is a pro, a veteran of mob vendettas and decades of high-tension heists. All he wants in his advancing middle age is his slice of the American pie - a way to make capitalism pay without having to drag guns into it. But a bullet-scarred life does not come without its bad karma, and Nolan - and his young cohort Jon, whose own dream is to confine the violence to the comics he draws - often find themselves facing old enemies and new temptations.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Masque of the Red Death” nearly 180 years ago, yet its narrative and characters continue to mystify and captivate. The short story is driven by Prince Prospero’s attempt to evade the “Red Death”, a fatal plague infecting his kingdom, by hiding in his abbey, where he indulges in pleasures and delights with other nobles. He soon finds out that no one can escape their end. Steven Archer has recast the characters of “The Masque” and illuminated the narrative in a novel and perhaps more visceral light.

The seemingly peaceful, prosperous community of Beverley Green is haunted. While certain inhabitants - the young Stella Nelson and her feckless painter-father Mr. Arthur Wilmot, who conducts a mysterious business in the City; the aristocratic Salter Boyden; and the retired businessman Merrivan - try to hide their pasts, it turns out that nothing stays secret for long. When, in this tense atmosphere, Mr. Merrivan is found murdered, the clues point to none other than Stella Nelson.

Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus has invested every last hope in achieving a prosperous new start in a new country. But the only job open to him - in the appalling stockyards of Packingtown, Chicago - will become a brutal, dispiriting, and dangerous challenge to his pride, his family, his life, and his faith in the American Dream. A scathing condemnation of capitalism, corporate corruption, and the exploitation of the working class, The Jungle was a sensation when first published. It stands as one the greatest and most influential proletarian novels ever written.

In this ninth volume of Glenn G. Thater’s Harbinger of Doom saga, Theta arrives at Jutenheim, hot on the heels of Korrgonn and the League of Shadows. Their fateful confrontation is fast approaching, if only they pass the Black Elf king and the ancient evils that lurk in his subterranean domain. But do the Black Elves serve the dark powers or the light?

Real estate developer Harold Longworth is facing life in prison for the murder of his wife in their Sagaponack, Long Island home. Just hired by the defense attorneys, former NYPD detective Giuseppe "Joey" Mancuso realizes that for a whole year before the trial, the attorneys have bungled the investigation. Was it on purpose? Are the attorneys covering something up? Joey and his half-brother, Father Dominic O'Brian, have 10 days before the end of the trial to find the real murderer.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.

As he attempts to rebuild his life in rural Oregon after a tragic accident, Malcolm Mays finds himself corresponding with Dusha Chuchonnyhoof, a mysterious entity who claims to be the owner of Malcolm's house, jailed unjustly for 117 years. The prisoner demands that Malcolm perform a gory, bewildering task for him. As the clock ticks toward Dusha's release, Malcolm must attempt to find out whether he's assisting a murderer or an innocent.

Luke Abramson, a brilliant cellular biologist who is battling lung cancer, has one joy in life: his 10-year-old granddaughter, Angela. When Angela is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given less than six months to live, Luke wants to try a new enzyme, Mortality Factor 4 (MORF4), that he believes will kill Angela's tumor. However, the hospital bureaucracy won't let him do it because MORF4 has not yet been approved by the FDA. Knowing Angela will die before he can get the treatment approved, Luke abducts her from the hospital with plans to take her to a private research laboratory in Oregon.

A promising young surgeon, Andrej Koscuikso has come, with great reluctance, to study at a military orientation center adrift in black space. Against his will, he will train here to serve as a "Ship's Inquisitor" - a vocation that runs counter to his deepest moral convictions.

This is the epic sea adventure, a harrowing tale of slavery and revolt aboard a Spanish ship, is often regarded as Melville's finest short story. The balance of forces is complete, the atmosphere one of epic significance, the light cast upon the hero intense to the highest degree, the realization of the human soul profound, and the telling of the story orchestrated like a great symphony.

A shattering childhood tragedy left Quentin Fears devastated. But the wealthy, enigmatic recluse has experienced the extraordinarily unexpected: love at first sight, with Madeleine. Now he must meet his new wife's family. A bizarre, dysfunctional collection of extreme characters, they are guarding a secret both shocking and terrifying, as is Madeleine herself. And suddenly Quentin Fears must prevent his dream woman from unleashing an ageless malevolence intent on ruling the world.

In The Dragon's Son, there is new hope in the form of a special offspring who might be able to bridge the anarchy that is disrupting the delicate and unseen order that the Parliament has tried to protect. The twin offspring of a high priestess and a dragon hold the key to man's future, but their identity must be held secret, even from each other, until they have matured. One is raised in a human court, the other in hiding.