Showing results by narrator "Patrick James" in All Categories

When a beautiful socialite is savagely murdered in Chicago's Oz Park, Detectives Gabriel Cronan and Angel Ramirez find her last hours have a sinister tie to two lovers. One is a mystery and the other is a famous violin virtuoso. A child prodigy turned world class musician, Ethan Chandler is young, handsome - and blind. He's surrounded by admirers with insatiable appetites for his undeniable talent and guileless charm.

The philosopher Jacques Barzun thought that "whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball". And whoever wants to know baseball had better learn about umpires. As Larry Gerlach points out in The Men in Blue, these arbiters transform competitive chaos into organized sport. They make it possible to "play ball", but nobody loves them.Considering the abuse meted out by fans and players, why would any sane person want to be an umpire? Many reasons emerge in conversations with a dozen former major-league arbiters.

A twisting thriller that taps into a deep well of erotic obsession, sexual betrayal, madness, and murder, Darkness Bound goes to fearless extremes to become an authentic and shocking suspense novel. In darkness…. Two strangers meet. A woman without inhibitions…a man without limits…for a private game between two consenting adults. In darkness…. They indulge in every secret fantasy, cross every boundary of sexual deviation. But one of them has a secret yet to be shared, a desire yet to be explored…

Everything you know about Occupy Wall Street is wrong. In this lively mix of memoir and analysis, writer-activist Travis Mushett takes you inside Occupy and demystifies a movement that was difficult for even its supporters to get a handle on. Pushing past the bromides, Mushett locates the source of this confusion.

Teddy Moon, ace major league relief pitcher, manic-depressive, and occasional amnesiac - is convinced that he's being framed for the bizarre murders of several transsexuals who are turning up in the garbage chutes of his team's various hotels. Hounded by the police, the Legion of Fear, and the elite cadres of the Politically Correct, Teddy takes off cross-country on a manic binge to find someone who doesn't think he did it.

To salvage his broken-down ranch, near-bankrupt Ben Pearce devises a hunting scheme, the consequences of which he cannot begin to imagine. The prey: three rare, fierce cats - a leopard and two mountain lions caught in the wild. The predators: an arrogant Texas millionaire, his beautiful but disturbed wife, and their near-psychopathic teenage son. Each of them will hunt one of the animals with only Ben as guide: first the wife, then the son, and finally the Texan.

In the baking heat of a Mexican resort town, life is spare but satisfying for David Rhodes, American exile and tennis bum, who is content with his low-key existence. But when a young female American drifter is found raped and murdered at the bottom of the seaside cliffs, Rhodes, an illegal alien, is an easy target and an immediate suspect - particularly to the town's sadistic police chief. David's comfortable life explodes in a sudden hell of accusation, imprisonment, and flight that can only end in one final, nightmarish confrontation.

Seattle, 2078. The future hasn't been kind to the spirit of humanity; commercial obsession and technological fetishism rules the day, religion and belief has died screaming in the fires of war, and what remains is moral decrepitude. Life in the future is hard on the soul. As an agent of the Industrial Security Bureau, Thomas Walken knows that better than anyone. His job is to keep the worst kind of black-market technology out of the hands of citizens, technology born out of the shadowy nation nicknamed Wonderland.

Two years have passed since Agent Thomas Walken and Bobbi January found themselves at the heart of a conspiracy of unimaginable greed and cruelty. The Genefex Corporation remains shrouded in mystery, and Bobbi faces a life of unanswered questions and mounting disillusionment to look forward to. But when she receives a mysterious message from one of Walken’s former comrades, she is drawn back onto the trail.

In the wasteland of commercial culture that is future America, police are operated not by government but by private companies. In Seattle, that role is filled by Civil Protection, and Daniel Gray is a detective in Homicide Solutions. What used to be considered an important - even glamorous - department for public police is very different for the corporate species, and Gray finds himself stuck in a dead end job. That is, until the Spine Thief arrives. When a serial killer begins harvesting the spinal tissue of corporate employees all over the city, Detective Gray finds himself plunged into the first truly major case of his career.

This novelette won the Hugo award in 1996 and has been hailed by many as a science-fiction classic. Intelligent dinosaurs from outer space offer humanity the chance to use their transporter technology to join the galactic culture, but at a terrible price. When a routine transport goes wrong, one man must face the consequences of becoming too much like an alien.

A psychological study masquerading as an experiment in time travel lures an undergraduate English major to volunteer. To the astonishment of the psychologists in charge of the study, he takes their instructions to heart - with horrific results.

In this charming romantic comedy, a divorced single mom decides to re-enter the dating scene via an ad in the personals section of her local paper. Among the many men who answer the ad is the mysterious Gardiner, who writes poems, breeds daylilies, and has the unsettling ability to know exactly the right thing to say to win a woman's heart. What is his secret?

In a future where virtual reality shows are the dominant entertainment form, a damaged young woman has the uncanny ability to impersonate the dead celebrities of the late 20th Century, bringing them to life once again for the nostalgia market. A bittersweet tale of fame lost and found, with an ending you'll never guess.

A career woman, wracked by guilt over the death of her young daughter, begins to find toys scattered around her house. Is she being haunted or going mad? Her psychiatrist insists that it's all in her mind but the truth is far stranger - and emotionally wrenching.

An overweight draftsman with a love for science fiction answers an ad in the back of his favorite magazine. It promises an incredible weight-loss miracle, but the return address is from Brimstone, Texas. In this wacky tale of diet and revenge, getting what you wish for might cost your immortal soul.

Mike has it all: a loving wife, a bright son, a steady job, and a house on a lake. Then why does he feel as though he had locked himself in and thrown away the key? And what is the meaning of the disturbing dream that haunts him night after night, the one in which he is revealed to be a coward? In a horrifying moment that shatters his tranquil life, his courage will be put to the ultimate test.

He's a simple man, trying to live a simple life. He works at a dry cleaner and lives by himself. He doesn't have any friends and doesn't dare to reach out to others because there's a monster inside of him, a bloody-minded creature he's fighting a losing battle to control. He prays to God for help knowing that, unless his prayers are answered very soon, he will go on a killing spree. A taut tale of suspense and the fantastic, that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last sentence.

Here's an emotional tale of family secrets set in 2038. Jen has been estranged from her father, a Shakespearian actor, ever since he got divorced from her mother years and years ago. But when her mother dies, Jen is astonished to discover that she has left her ex-husband a fortune in her will. Jen tries to confront her father, but first she must get past the robot that cares for him. This is a Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon nominee, and the winner of the Locus Award for best short story of 1997.

This is the story of Thumb the Great. He gave his people the bow and arrow and taught them the ways of war. When the battle madness took him, there was no one so fierce. He was a man filled with luck. A Cro-Magnon cave painter encounters the last mammoth on earth in this thrilling story of a man reluctantly coming to terms with destiny.