Showing results by narrator "Tom Fria" in All Categories

In this rousing 1852 romp through the eerie woods surrounding Hannibal, Missouri, and up and down the Mississippi River, 14-year-old Daniel Webster Jackson runs into a counterfeit Underground Railroad when he decides to run away from his foster home. At every turn, he musters courage to survive in a land where the law is at odds with the heart and soul of a people, where the Missouri Compromise forces everyone into a disguise or a secret identity. 

This fast-moving and sometimes disturbing book starts at the point where Brian is about to be arrested for smuggling a kilogram of cocaine into the UK in 1995, earning him a prison sentence of 12 years. The book explores his disadvantaged life growing up in Wales in impoverished circumstances with a number of brothers and sisters, all with the same mother but several different fathers. He tells of his first experience with drugs at the tender age of 16 and continues to chart his descent into drugs and drug dealing. 

Just when Archeologist and Vampire Slayer, Dr. Abraham Stroud thinks he can take it easy, take a second seat on a dig in West Texas, he is wrong from the outset. Plagued by warnings he does not at first recognize, Abe soon finds himself in the thick of an attack on humankind by a pod of prehistoric, giant centipedes that have cultivated a taste beyond livestock to a taste for humans. The creatures are known to local Native Americans as "Burrowers" as they have seen them before, but for Abe and those around him, there is a brewing war anticipated and soon engaged.

When the Louisiana Bayou folks calling themselves members of the Bayou Wulf’s Clan turn out to be real werewolves, it’s a bit late in the day for archeologist Abraham Stroud, whose bayou dig puts him and his people directly in harm’s way. In fact, this wulf coven has created a safe haven for their kind - Oasis, Louisiana, an entire town filled with Bayou Wulves, many fathered by Bayou Wulf itself - their disputable and dubious leader. 

When FBI psychic Dr. Aurelia Murphy Hiyakawa is asked in on a case in New Orleans, she soon learns that the missing Gone Girls may as yet be alive and that their abductor is a "collector" rather than a typical serial abductor/killer. With three missing and as yet no clue as to where they may be, the only saving grace is that no bodies have shown up. There is little about this case that resembles anything that "Rae" Hiyakawa has faced before in PSI Blue and DEJA Blue. But the case takes on a new wrinkle that no one could have predicted.

A spy working for religious organizations, Jere Wakely is summoned to Salem Village Parish, where it has become obvious to church authorities that there is serious trouble. He is reluctant to return to his hometown for many reasons, not the least being that his heart is broken, and he's worried about running into his former lover, Serena Nurse. During his investigation, he has no expectation that their love will be rekindled. But their renewed passion parallels a greater fire - one of terror amid the infamous Salem Witch Trials. 

This is a short story dealing with an injustice, a town without patience or pity in 1912 for the last living slave woman in this town. Each of six scenes builds to a crescendo of action. It is an old story of injustice brought about by those in power toward the poorest and least powerful in the community. It is also a story of rage when the last straw is put on old, dear Aunt Tilley who has changed the diapers of those who want to remove her. Told in the best tradition of Mark Twain's more serious tales.

Off a near-death experience in chasing down one serial killer in Upstate, New York. Dr. Jessica Coran is back at her Quantico forensic labs, in safe confines. That is until she gets a call from Andover, Massachusetts Police Chief, Shamus Hale. Hale, a descendant of Rev. William Hale of Salem Witchcraft infamy, has a horrid, inconceivable, and huge problem on his hands - a serial killer murdering abducted children, infants in fact.

Step inside a dream which becomes reality. Venture off with Gary, a high school art teacher suffering from insomnia. For 10 years, he’s been keeping the struggle alive for his missing sister Kelly, who disappeared without a trace. When he attempts to get his life back with the help of an experimental pill, he soon finds a dangerous connection between the living and the dead. Now, caught in the clutches of his drug-induced dreams, corrupting him with visions of what really happened to Kelly.

The sequel to Vampire Babies, book number nine in Bloodscreams Series, this is book number 10 Mindbreach. The return of Dr. Abe Stroud, vampire slayer and archaelogist.

Bacardi and Coke. Neat. Not the usual drink of choice for a mountain dwarf. Then again, Detective Sirgrus Blackmane is no ordinary dwarf - at least not since the Great War. Being a gumshoe during Prohibition might appear glamorous, with secret speakeasies, all-night cocktail parties, and scantily clad women displaying their knees, but crime and conspiracy lurk beneath the city’s shining illusion.

Dr. Abraham Stroud, who has faced down monsters and supernatural beings from vampires and werewolves to man-sized spiders from space, as well as Satanipedes in Texas, a hero who has astrally traveled through time in search of the origin of evil, now faces a new kind of horrid threat. He's asked on/begged to come on a dig in a faraway ancient and foreign land near Malta...a dig that has uncovered a children's graveyard from ancient times; a cemetery of suspected vampire babies.  

A second helping of romance, murder, and mystery is served. Add chills and thrills for seasoning, and you have a very good second episode. A second young girl is found murdered on the east side of Bay City. What clue did one of the young murdered girls leave behind? My God! Sammy, Paula small with short blonde hair!

In the American West, as the nation heals from the Civil War that nearly destroyed it, new battle lines are being drawn. Caleb Justin, orphaned and grieving, and his comrade Joshua Hart, a tough, worldly runaway, leave their home along the Ohio River bound for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, intent to join Sheridan’s troops in their pursuit of Indian lands.

This novel begins with an allegorical tale depicting the origin of humanlike animals that evolve from purely instinctual and reactive creatures toward becoming individuals who receive the gift of sentience. These animals also absorb an inherent consciousness of individuality that includes using free will when making everyday decisions. This evolutionary advancement is instigated by superior spiritual beings call Zenithians, who are responsible for the creation and evolution of all aspects of living beings within the Earthly realm. 

The secret to their past lies in a tale written by the author as a 10-year-old girl. Fan fiction, 80s nostalgia, and the imagination of a child combine to form a story that’s equal parts baffling and brilliant – and dangerous for anyone living through it firsthand. But as the world evolves and the story matures, author and villain grow closer to solving the mystery of how their lives have always been connected. The lines between fantasy and reality, past and future, villain and heroine, blur in a spectacular journey through a fantasy world.

A recipe for murder, romance, lies, and mystery is on the menu. In the first episode in the series, in the upscaled suburbs of Bay City, a wealthy man is found murdered in his own bedroom. His wife is missing, and he is the prime suspect. Enter private investigator Johnny Blake, a former homicide detective for the BCPD. Leads become more entangled, and not everything is as it seems. John enlists aid from street-smart kid Jimmy McNeil to help solve the case. 

Donald Ray “Hokey” Busby has a bit of the devil in him, but nobody thought he’d kill his best friend, Harry “Fats” Shell. Yet, one night on the Walker family farm, Hokey brutally shoots Fats down. Hours later, Hokey is found dying in a pool of blood from a single shotgun blast. 

A future Hall of Fame shortstop was met outside an Atlanta underground sports bar with an aluminum baseball bat to the back of his head. Half a world away, a Mossad agent was exposed to a terrorist organization’s chemical weapons test. The investigation of these seemingly unrelated events led the greater Tucker Cherokee family to uncover an international conspiracy of epic significance. 

Inspector Alastair Ransom, Chicago PD is back, pulled from a poker game when his snitch is found murdered in a back alley. The seemingly unimportant victim comes to full-blown life and recognition as Alastair uncovers the clues to his murder. With each new revelation, Henry Bosch, aka Dot'n'Carry (due to the sound of his wooden leg) becomes more real to Ransom than when he was alive. The old veteran of the Civil War, town drunk, gambler, hobo and storyteller, who'd become a staple of life on Chicago's streets, in death, becomes Inspector Ransom's latest obsession.