Showing results by narrator "Ray Chase" in All Categories

A year ago, Danny Ryan lost his wife and son in a car accident. He's still reeling from the tragedy when Michael Cohen, his friend and fellow journalist, drives into the pond in front of his house with a bullet through his gut. With Michael's death ruled a murder, Danny must work to get his name crossed off the list of suspects, and that means digging into Michael's last article, an exposé of the twisted side of Philadelphia politics.

In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic - she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer" a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers.

Nearly two years after the harrowing events of The Straits of Galahesh, Atiana and Nikandr continue their long search for Nasim. The clues they find lead them to the desert wastes of the Gaji, where the fabled valley of Shadam Khoreh lies. But all is not well. War has moved from the islands to the mainland, and the Grand Duchy knows its time may be limited if Yrstanla rallies its forces. Worse, the wasting disease and the rifts grow ever wider, threatening places that once thought themselves safe.

Three-time Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele now imagines an alternate history rooted in an actual historical possibility: what if the race to space had occurred in the early days of WWII? It's 1941, and Wernher von Braun is ordered by his Fuehrer to abandon the V2 rocket and turn German resources in a daring new direction: construction of a manned orbital spacecraft capable of attacking the U.S. Work on the rocket - called Silbervogel - begins at Peenemunde. Though it is top secret, British intelligence discovers the plan, and brings word to Franklin Roosevelt.

The invaders have arrived. The last battle for humanity is about to begin. Stardust is the final book in the Rebel Stars series.

Cold War Marseille is a city of shadowy alliances and loose morals, where a good man can lose sight of which side he is really on and evil men profit from the misery and confusion of others. It is therefore the perfect town for Ernst Ludwig, an East German terrorist who is sadistic beyond measure. But when Ludwig kidnaps and murders the wife of Alex Moran, the US intelligence agent hot on his trail, he sets off a blood feud whose violent shock waves will span decades and reach all the way across the globe.

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length treatments On the Make and The Kiss-Off, this collection includes never before and rarely published stories that explore failed romance, courage in the face of uncertainty, hypocrisy, and crass opportunism.

Dispatched to fight the Taliban as part of the NATO forces, the soldiers of the Third Platoon arrive in a desert hell intent on testing their courage and endurance. Among them are the charismatic platoon leader Schrøder, a former games designer fascinated by the imaginative potential of war; Colonel Steffensen, whose negotiating tactics will have deadly consequences; Sidekick, the LifeLogger whose online “war memorial” will blur into horror; and the hardened but vulnerable Hannah, who must bury her womanhood - or sacrifice her soul.

Among inhospitable and unforgiving seas stands Khalakovo, a mountainous archipelago of seven islands, its prominent eyrie stretching a thousand feet into the sky. Serviced by windships bearing goods and dignitaries, Khalakovo's eyrie stands at the crossroads of world trade. But all is not well in Khalakovo. Conflict has erupted between the ruling Landed, the indigenous Aramahn, and the fanatical Maharraht, and a wasting disease has grown rampant over the past decade.

Streaming video games is now a billion-dollar industry. In 2022, Twitch alone had over 140 million active monthly users, with top players earning millions each year. But success breeds envy, and when big money's being made, everyone wants a piece.

Through the screen of his computer a man watches a squirrel running about in a forest. For the better half of his life he has been drifting from job to job, diligently designing work-automating systems, and being rendered redundant by those systems. As he observes the squirrel, we observe him; and as he imagines the squirrel's world, we imagine his. The Squirrel Awakes is a quiet meditation on 21st century life and a compelling look at the direction society is heading.

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace.

FinnTech has allied with the aliens who once pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. No one knows their next move. In desperation, Rada and Webber fly to the Locker. A pirate station in Uranus orbit, its fleet may be the only thing capable of resisting the FinnTech forces. But as Rada fights to bring the Locker to her side, she discovers a new conspiracy.

After years of open-water diving, Aaron and Margot have upped the ante. Not content to simply swim with pretty fish, the couple have taken up cave diving - climbing into the Earth in search of flooded caverns filled with adventure. Surrounded by icy waters and claustrophobic rock, where most people would only fear drowning, the newly engaged lovers find thrilling fun.

Frederick the Demon (formerly A Warm Place to Call Home): Frederick is a demon. Born in Maryland in the early 1980s, he hasn't a clue where he came from or why but feels an irresistible desire to occupy a human body. Once inside, he finds the previous occupant's consciousness and memories forever erased, an inevitable side effect that gives Frederick pause when switching bodies but not so much as to truly halt his ongoing enjoyment of human lives.

When Scott Dawson's wife, Holly, disappears, leaving her family at the brink of bankruptcy, the last thing Scott expects is a helping hand from nowhere, a rich and never before mentioned Uncle Alastair. Uncle Alastair is dead, but his will promises to save them all - if the Dawsons follow its stipulations.

During and in the aftermath of the dark period of the Holocaust, writers across Europe and America sought to express their feelings and experiences through their writings. This book provides a comprehensive account of these writings through essays from expert scholars, covering a wide geographic, linguistic, thematic and generic range of materials.

The first case is simple. A wealthy man’s wife has grown distant, and he asks Frank Clemons, a private eye hardened by his past work on Atlanta’s homicide beat, to find out why. There are a number of simple reasons why a young woman might withdraw from her older husband, but the spurned spouse rejects them all. Her jewelry is disappearing, but he insists that she doesn’t have trouble with blackmail, drugs, or gambling. The answer must be more complex, and he begs Frank to find out what it is.

An irreverent satire of New York’s media world - and its influence and allure. Writers Tony, Patty, Fred, and David all know what they want: renown, glamour, wealth, recognition. They know where to get it: New York, a beacon for ambitious novelists, playwrights, and journalists. But what they don’t know is that the game is changing. This is the 1980s, an era of massive corporatization and commercialization in the business of arts and letters. Fame and fortune may come quickly for many, but dignity and lasting influence are in short supply.