Showing results by narrator "Christian Rummel" in All Categories

For alcoholic former actress Leigh Baker, the moment will always be suspended in time: Seeing her daughter plunge to her death from the terrace of a sixth-floor apartment. Months later, the man responsible is convicted by a jury of his peers. Four years after that, he is out on parole. And one by one, those whose testimony helped put James Delancey away meet violent ends. Manhattan doyenne Oona Aldridge is the first. She is found in the dressing room of a trendy Manhattan boutique, her throat slashed.

A rich man and a poor man are found dead of gunshot wounds outside a seedy bar on Barrington Street. The police declare it a murder-suicide, but bluesman/lawyer Monty Collins suspects it's a double murder. Helped by his friend, Father Brennan Burke, and hindered by his femme fatale law partner, Felicia Morgan, Monty explores the dark side of Halifax society: hookers, drug addicts, boozers, gamblers and people desperate to cover up a series of parties that got way out of hand.

Lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins is used to defending murderers - and occasionally investigating murders himself - but he's never come up against anything like the case of Reinhold Schellenberg, a world-renowned German theologian who has been found dead on the altar of an old church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saint Cecilia's Day. The controversial priest, once a top insider in the Vatican, was known to provoke strong feelings in Catholics, and now those feelings have overflowed with horrifying results.

Maj. David Valentine and his fugitive battalion are the remnants of an expeditionary force shattered in its long retreat from disaster in the Appalachians. Between a raging blizzard, bands of headhunters, and the need to recover wounded soldiers lost during the retreat, Valentine is in for the toughest winter of his life.

Freedom is on the march as the rebellion against the Kurian Occupation of Earth takes the offensive. David Valentine has recruited an as hoe company of former Quisling soldiers to put them through a trial by fire with a successful raid against an enemy armory. Now they're ready to join forces with a guerrilla army planning to establish a new freehold in the Appalachian Mountains.

Earth’s first colony ship finally reaches the target world. The excitement of planetfall is indescribable, but quickly transforms into sick disappointment when they find the atmosphere is a roiling mass of hydrochloric acid, carbon dioxide, and other deadly poisons. They fly onward, seeking better planets. They find them, but none are ideal. The search goes on for a century, then longer still. As they move farther from Earth, aliens discover the intruding ship, and they begin to investigate humanity. They find our species unacceptable.

Two young boys set off for the Rocky River Bridge through their war-torn North Carolina hometown, both with something to prove - an adventure that will quickly teach them the realities of the raging world around them, in this prequel to DJ Molles' newest novel: The Purge of District 89.

When you think of St. Petersburg noir, some of the greatest literary names immediately spring to mind - Alexander Pushkin, Nikolay Gogol, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Modern day St. Petersburg lavishly offers the scenery and conditions for true noir stories, and the writers in St. Petersburg Noir succeed in concocting their own worlds within this city with stories ranging from mystical to outwardly grotesque.

Heed the Slammers Battle Cry! A warrior's truth: "In the long run, everybody's dead. So screw the long run!" Patriotic hoo-ha may be well and good for recruitment parades, but David Drake's battle-hardened mercenaries know it takes tanks, guns, and grit to win when the real fighting flares. Yet peace brings its own problems to old soldiers - for killing potential enemies in battle is self-limiting, but once the killing starts in peacetime, there may be no end to the madness.

The dragons deserve to be free, but who will be strong enough to ensure their safety? A war long thought over has returned, and this time the empire is not equipped to survive. Still, the dragons are safe, living in the heart of the forest near an ancient Deshazl settlement. Though hidden from the Damhur who would control them, Fes feels they deserve more and longs to see them fly free again. When another attack leaves the empire weakened, Fes and a few friends search for allies. Finding those allies is key, but who can they trust?

The finale of the second series of Deadlocked. The High Rollers are ready to take revenge against the forces aligned against them. A hard and long winter has forced them into hiding, but has also given them a respite from something else…something far worse than anything they’ve battled so far. The Noah Initiative has begun, and the land will soon be devastated by a new virus. The people lined up against the High Rollers are fighting among themselves as well, and everyone is at risk. This isn’t just a fight for survival anymore, it’s a fight to save the entire human race.

The country has become a war zone, and with a Coalition troop surge imminent, the resistance is on the ropes. Walter is in the city of Durham, fighting to survive. He has no idea that his wife, Carolyn, is only miles away, desperately trying to find him. She has information on a special target - a last ditch mission that could turn the tide for the resistance. And Walter may just have access to the only team of fighters capable of pulling it off.

After spending months buried up to my eyeballs in my family's affairs, I'm ready for a break. The kind of break where I can spend two solid weeks camping and fishing in the company of absolutely no one. Then I find myself directly in the path of a drop-dead gorgeous tornado by the name of Becca Stone. Who can resist a night with a damsel in distress? Especially when she happens to be a leggy blonde? The last thing I expect is for Becca to show up on my cabin doorstep the next night, shivering in the rain and ready for seconds.

The Drop Edge of Yonder begins in the mountains of Colorado and ends in the far reaches of the Northwest, a journey that includes the beginnings of a Mexican revolution, a voyage across the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, and up the coast of California to San Francisco and the gold fields. Along the trail, Zebulon becomes involved in a series of tragic love triangles, witnesses the death of his mother and father, and confronts the age-old questions of life, love, and death.

The empire remains in chaos following the last attack. Fes searches to connect to the newly raised dragon, wanting to find him before the Damhur attack again, but when he finally returns to the capital, he’s too late. War has returned to the empire in full. With dragons controlled by the Damhur attacking along the coast, the fire mages and Dragon Guard outmanned, Fes urgently needs to find a way to save the dragons - and help the empire. The search brings him to a foreign land where he uncovers ancient secrets in his quest.

A personal message written in human blood is left for crime reporter Molly Wilson at the murder scene of her boyfriend, San Francisco Homicide Inspector Cliff Hooper. The horrific death of a revered cop shocks the San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Detail. Shaken to the core, his grieving fellow detectives go flat out to find his killer under the glare of the city's news media.

In the 43rd millennium of human history, Imre Bergamasc awakens after 200 years to the realization that he has been the victim of an elaborate murder plot - one that has destroyed the intergalactic transport milieu known as the Continuum. But now that Imre has been reborn, he will stop at nothing to help bring forth the rebirth of the galaxy.

In a city full of police controversies, hippie artist punk houses, and overzealous liberals, Portland, Oregon, is a place where even its fiction blurs with its bizarre realities. Brand-new stories by: Gigi Little, Justin Hocking, Christopher Bolton, Jess Walter, Monica Drake, Jamie S. Rich (illustrated by Joelle Jones), Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Bill Cameron, Ariel Gore, Floyd Skloot, Megan Kruse, Kimberly Warner-Cohen, and Jonathan Selwood.

A yacht captain is on trial for murdering a woman he hired with more than the boat's cooking in mind. Circumstantial evidence abounds, so the slick defense attorney coaches his client in ways to influence the jury. Millar is more interested in developing engaging, three-dimensional characters than in solving the crime here. The judge, the lawyers, the clerk, and several witnesses all have different reasons for being concerned with the outcome, and the listener gets to see that justice can be very fragile in a realistic courtroom setting.

The city of Mera is a fortress hidden from the rest of humanity, a sanctuary for the diverse group of people rescued from death by the Oraclethat rules the city. The Oracle has brought together the citizens of Merafrom every land and every time period, protecting them from the ravages oftime, death and the evil demon forces that howl outside the city at night.