Showing results by narrator "Ben McLean" in All Categories

Crawford County, Texas, hadn't had a deliberate homicide in 80 years, and Sheriff Charles Matthews liked that statistic just fine, particularly since his department wasn't generously endowed with manpower. Folks in Crawford County didn't altogether understand Charles Matthews. It wasn't his law degree - lots of folks had law degrees and were still respectable - and it wasn't the fact he was from Dallas. It wasn't even because he never told anybody why he left Dallas. It was because Charles had no nickname in an area where nicknames were as common as sagebrush.

When cowboy artist Willie Russell is murdered on the Branding Iron Ranch, Sheriff Charles Matthews faces a mystery that seems built on the bones of the past. Willie Russell leaves behind sketches that illustrate a century-old legend of a brutal outlaw, a beautiful young woman, and the lost Santiago Crucifix, a three-foot-tall cross of solid gold. With only the sketches, the footprints of Johnny Brentwood, and very little else, Charles focuses on the eerie links between past and present events. Were Willie's sketches the story of the past, or a portent of the future?

The last few years of the Tribulation will be the worst period of time in the history of the world. God's wrath will be unleashed upon the Earth in the form of seven trumpet and seven bowl judgements. During this time, most of the world's population will be destroyed. Wrath - Left Behind is the second book in the Wrath Trilogy. Our story begins immediately after the Rapture of the Church. Jackson has been left behind and must now try to survive for more than two years, until the Second Coming of Christ. He will face the brutality of the Zone Police, demons, hunger, thirst, and more than a dozen unique judgements....

S.O.S. is a fine WWII-era historical novel (based on Allan Cole’s family experiences) set in Florida, on the “Home Front.” Nazi submarine attacks off the coast are only the start of the problems for local residents. Will humans overcome obstacles in the face of adversity and surely save the day? The author writes: “Between February & May of 1942, German U-boats operated with impunity off the Florida coast, sinking nearly two dozen freighters from Cape Canaveral to Key West & killing 5,000 people. Residents were horrified witnesses of the attacks...."

At 14, Gillis McCabe has a contentious argument with his father and angrily leaves his home, vanishing into the city. Years later, through hard work and innovative decisions he rises to become one of the wealthiest businessmen in Virginia. Feeling an urge to mend the relationship with his father, he decides to make the journey back to his childhood home. What he discovers shocks him. His father's estate is in shambles and the entire staff has been massacred.

Lucky in Cyprus is a coming-of-age story set in the Middle East during the height of the Cold War. An American teenager - son of a CIA operative - is inspired by grand events and a Greek Cypriot teacher to learn about survival and his art. He witnesses earthquakes and riots and terrorist attacks, but in the end it is his teacher's gentle lessons that keep him whole.

When Marshal Tom Sturdivant unpinned his badge, he meant to lay down the gun that had made him famous and retire to his Wyoming ranch. Then a violent incident in Lodestone, Colorado, gave him a score to settle and one more job to do - a job that would bring him face to face with A. J. Adler, the notorious gunman who'd stolen his woman so long ago.

Would you like to become rich? Stephen Hawley Martin, an entrepreneur who founded and sold two businesses, explains in this book how anyone capable of getting and holding a job can become incredibly wealthy by following one of several paths he sets out. One path is to start a business, grow a business, and sell a business. Alternatives to that direction include keeping a day job and building a fortune by starting and running a business on the side, or by investing in real estate or other passive income generators.

Terror stalks the campus of a Minnesota university, where two professors working on classified military research have been brutally murdered. Student Karen Butler fears for her life after her adviser is killed, realizing she's the only one left with detailed knowledge of a new nerve gas defense system plus a terrible nanotech weapon. Karen and her boyfriend, Jack Nelson, a member of the elite military group Eagle Squad, play a dangerous game with an enemy who claims the secrets belong to them. As the pressure mounts, the pair are terrorized by an implacable foe.

When the mummified remains of a World War II GI are unearthed in the sub-basement of the Crawford County Courthouse, the residents, well-known for their nonstop gossip, are suddenly as quiet as the soldier's grave. Sheriff Charles Matthews is frustrated by the town's silence. He isn't planning to arrest anyone for a murder more than 50 years old, but he does want to bury the soldier's remains with a name other than John Doe. One of the local oldsters must know that name, but no one, not even his spinster dispatcher, Miss Poole, will talk.

Eight thousand hunters descend on Crawford County, Texas, for the annual pheasant season. To Sheriff Charles Matthews that's 8,000 chances for a gun-related accident. But when the most hated man in the county, banker Rich Hansford, turns up with his face removed by a shotgun blast, it's no accident; it's murder. To Crawford County folk, it's a public service killing, and no one, not even the sheriff's staff, are much interested in seeing anyone arrested. 

Enrique Armijo, archaeologist and, in his own mind, the world's authority on the Folsom Man culture, is spying on a ritual performed by the so-called Skin People in the crater of Capulin Mountain, an extinct volcano in northern New Mexico. He doesn't expect to be murdered. He certainly doesn't expect the weapon to be a prehistoric atl-atl. Back in Crawford County, Texas, Sheriff Charles Matthews doesn't expect a call from his deputy, Raul Trujillo, about the archaeologist's murder and the bizarre weapon used.

During the Vietnam War, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece - more or less - were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes "Freedom Birds". This is the story of three young men - from wildly different backgrounds - who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime.

Embark on a profound journey through the intricate twists and turns of Dr. Hyneezitzs' vivid memories. Traverse the thin line, where his haunting past seamlessly meets the tangible present, and the boundaries of reality dance with the shades of old recollections. Clasping a top-tier shovel amidst the piercing cold, one psychologist battles not just the snow, but the haunting reverberations of bygone days. Venture deeper into this mesmerizing tale winding through the intricate maze of his mind.