Showing results by narrator "Bernadette Dunne" in All Categories

A murder is solved and a quiet Amish community must deal with the repercussions. Amid the surprising revelations, can a newfound love survive? As the search for Perry Borntrager's killer continues, Jacob Schrock feels like his world is about to crumble. Right before Perry went missing, he and Jacob got into a fistfight. Jacob never told anyone what happened that terrible night. He's good at keeping secrets - including his love for Deborah, Perry's sister. But Jacob senses everything is about to be revealed.

When an illegal Mexican immigrant is shot to death on a ranch outside Dallas, it makes the news, not because of the immigrant but because of the shooter, rising political star Senator Chase. The death appears to be a hunting accident, and the well-loved senator spins the disaster artfully with his tearful press conference. But then the wife of the victim steps forward with another tale and evidence of a cover-up of epic proportions.

After years away, Maura Shaw has returned to Newport, Rhode Island, to teach English at the academy. Behind her lies her life as the perfect Midwestern wife and mother, a life that seemed on the surface to be all she had ever wished for. That illusion vanished in a storm off Mackinac Island in the wake of an accident that engulfed Maura’s husband and her older daughter, Carrie. Now, with her son and younger daughter, she hopes to find a new beginning. Newport has never failed to infuse Maura with a sense of mystery and hope.

Japan, March 1700. The strife between Sano Ichir-o, the samurai detective who has risen to power in the shogun's court, and his enemies has escalated to the brink of war. Called away from the crisis by the shogun's orders to investigate a mysterious skeleton, Sano and his wife, Reiko, must confront dangerous, long-buried secrets. What was Sano's own mother doing on the night when a burning kimono ignited a blaze that nearly destroyed the city?

Charles Kendrick, a senior U.S. senator, is a suspect in the disappearance of a young female staff member. A multi-state manhunt is already underway, and the district attorney is pressuring Kendrick for an interview, which his lawyer, Marty, doesn't want to grant. At the same time, Marty and her law partner and lover, Harry Madigan, are preparing the defense of a man accused of murdering a priest. Both defendants are lying, but to whom? And can their actions be justified?

In the wake of a terrifying earthquake, Sano Ichiro races to solve a crime that could bring down the shogun's regime. When a massive earthquake devastates Japan in 1703, even the shogun's carefully regulated court is left teetering on the brink of chaos. This is no time for a murder investigation - except when a nobleman's daughters are found dead from incense poisoning and their father threatens to topple the regime unless Sano Ichiro tracks down the killer.

Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride is inspired by The Robber Bridegroom, a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one. But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of three friends.

Bridie's life has been a series of wrongs. The potato famine in Ireland. Being sent to the poorhouse when her mother's new job in America didn't turn out the way they'd hoped. Becoming an orphan. And then there's the latest wrong - having to work for a family so abusive that Bridie is afraid she won't survive. So she runs away to Seneca Falls, New York, which in 1848 is a bustling town full of possibility. There, she makes friends with Rose, a girl with her own list of wrongs, but with big dreams, too.

Meet Claire Waters, a young, dedicated forensic psychiatrist with unnervingly personal insights into the criminal mind. Haunted by a disturbing childhood incident - and driven by her demons - Claire has always been drawn to those rare “untreatable” patients who seem to have no conscience or fear. She has a natural ability to put people at ease, to help them face their darkest secrets.

Martha "Marty" Nickerson, a Cape Cod district attorney turned defense lawyer, must defend a man who shot his son's presumed killer on live television. The only possible defense is insanity, but the grieving father refuses to say he was crazy when he pulled the trigger. In a seemingly unrelated case, a battered woman is held for the murder of her spouse, and all evidence points to her as the murderess.

Seven minutes after President Obama put his signature to a landmark national health care insurance program, a lawyer in the office of Florida GOP attorney general Bill McCollum hit a computer key, sparking a legal challenge to the new law that would eventually reach the nation’s highest court. Health care is only the most visible and recent front in a battle over the meaning and scope of the U.S. Constitution. The battleground is the Supreme Court, and one of the most skilled, insightful, and trenchant of its observers takes us close up to watch it in action.

America’s high divorce rate is well known, but little attention has been paid to the flip side: couples who creatively (sometimes clandestinely) manage to build marriages that last longer than we ever thought possible. What’s the secret? To find out, best-selling journalist Iris Krasnow interviewed more than 200 wives whose marriages have survived for 15-70 years.

Stinging deaths aren't uncommon in the summertime, but when Henry Wiest turns up stung to death at an Indian reservation, Detective Hazel Micallef senses not all is as it seems. And when it turns out the "bee" was a diabolical teenaged girl on a murder spree with a strange weapon, a dark and twisted crime begins to slowly emerge. The questions, contradictions, and bodies begin to mount, as two separate police forces struggle to work together to save the soul of Westmuir County.

Elsie Keim doesn't want to be left behind. Her twin sister, Viola, and her older brother, Roman, have both found love and are building lives of their own. But Elsie? She's still stuck at home, being treated like a child. No one seems to consider her a capable woman - all they see are the thick lenses of her glasses, constant reminders that Elsie suffers from keratoconus and is slowly going blind.

Elsie knows there's much more to her than her disease. That's why when a new neighbor, Landon Troyer, shows some interest in her, she doesn't want anything to scare him away…even if it means keeping her condition a secret.

Texas may well be America’s most controversial state. Evangelicals dominate the halls of power, millions of its people live in poverty, and its death row is the busiest in the country. Skeptical outsiders have found much to be offended by in the state’s politics and attitude, and yet, according to journalist and Texan Erica Grieder, the United States has a great deal to learn from Texas. In Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right, Grieder traces the political history of a state that was always larger than life. From its rowdy beginnings, Texas has combined a long-standing suspicion of government intrusion with a passion for business.

Social networks are the defining cultural movement of our time, empowering us in constantly evolving ways. We can all now be reporters, alerting the world to breaking news; participate in crowd-sourced scientific research; and become investigators, helping the police solve crimes. Social networks have even helped to bring down governments. But they have also greatly accelerated the erosion of our personal privacy rights—and anyone could become a victim.

Iris Chang, the best-selling author of The Rape of Nanking and a tireless human-rights activist, symbolized strength to many in the literary and social-justice worlds. Her fearless reputation made it all the more shocking when she committed suicide in 2004 at age 36. Long-time friend Paula Kamen reveals for the first time the private Iris behind the bold, international celebrity. She offers a tribute to the lost heroine while attempting to explain Iris' tragic psychological decline.

Still Water Saints chronicles a momentous year in the life of Agua Mansa, a largely Latino town beyond the fringes of Los Angeles. Agua Mansa is home to the Botanica Oshun, where people come seeking charms, herbs, candles, and above all, the guidance of the shop's owner, Perla Portillo. Perla has served the community for years, arming her clients with the tools to overcome all manner of crises, large and small.

For All the Obvious Reasons is Lynn Stegner's superb collection of nine remarkably distinct tales of passion, clear-eyed wisdom, and honesty honed to a cutting edge. These are stories the listener can't shake: A woman living a marital shadow life realizes that her long compensating heart has begun to ominously decompensate. An affluent New Yorker becomes a hoarder to escape a future he cannot bear to take up. A baby dies in a miasma of sibling resentments, and from that the secrets of culpability unravel.

The brutal murder of LaVerne Stordock, a respected family man and former police detective, shocked the residents of his rural Wisconsin community. On the surface, the case seemed closed with the confession of Stordock's second wife, Suzanne. But the trail of secrets and lies that began with his death did not end with his widow's conviction. Ever since she was a teenager, Dorothy Marcic was haunted by unresolved questions surrounding the killing of her uncle. Though she led a busy life as a playwright, theatrical producer, and university professor, she couldn't put her doubts to rest.