Showing results by narrator "A A Maynard" in All Categories

This is the story of the great stampede of gold seekers to Alaska, written from the eyewitness viewpoint of the author. Not just a spectator, the author was among the first gold seekers who took part in the initial mining activities in the northland.

Eliza Miller grew up in Australia as the only daughter of a troubled young mother, but with the constant support of two watchful godmothers, Olivia and Maxie. Despite her tricky childhood, she always felt loved and secure. Until, just before her 18th birthday, a tragic event changed her life. Thirteen years on, Eliza is deliberately living as safely as possible, avoiding close relationships and devoting herself to her job. Out of the blue, an enticing invitation from her godmothers prompts a leap into the unknown.

Shell Scott's mental contemplation was rudely interrupted when his office door was suddenly opened and an unpleasant little man walked in with a .45 caliber automatic pointed right at Shell's midsection. Unknown to Shell Scott, some guy named Sader wanted Shell eliminated permanently. Why, is the question

When Paul Bristol returns home from Europe, he knows his involvement in the war is inevitable, though reluctant. As an artist and photographer he is requested to go to the battlefront and capture Confederate bravery on film. But he needs an assistant trained in photography.

'The scarlet bikini which had covered a minimum of the eye-popping curves on the dead woman, lay at her feet, and my eyes focussed on her as glassily as did the dead man’s next to her. He was dead, all right. He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed, and strangled. Either somebody really had it in for him or four people had killed him. Or else it was the cleverest suicide I’d ever heard of. Me? I’m Shell Scott, private detective and I’m wondering why anybody in his right mind would commit such a complicated murder....'

The Horseman, is the story of the Ballou family's brave struggle to fulfill a dream. The Ballous were the finest horsemen in the South, a courageous Tennessee family famous for the training and breeding of glorious thoroughbreds. When the Civil War devastated their home and their lives, they headed west into the heart of Indian territory. As horsemen, they triumphed. As a family, they endured. But as pioneers in a new land, they faced unimaginable hardship, danger, and ruthless enemies....

Shell Scott is hired to help State Senator Paul Hershey gather information against Joe Blake, one of the biggest crooks Los Angeles has ever produced. Joe Blake is the kingpin behind the opposition party to Paul Hershey’s re-election. Blake is backing the candidate against Hershey, a Blake pawn, and using smear and innuendo in an increasingly vicious campaign. Hershey’s only defense against this onslaught is to get the information that will put Blake behind bars. That’s where Shell Scott comes in.

Marty Keller, ex-Texas Ranger turned bounty hunter, is on the vengeance trail to find the three men who murdered his family. After being wounded, he is cared for by the widow of a murdered sheriff and she convinces him to search for the sheriff's killer as well. She asks a friend of the sheriff, an Indian, to help. The two are slowed by many battles along the way but eventually track the killers across the Southwest into Mexico. Side-tracked again, Marty gets involved in defending a large ranchero from Mexican bandits.

“The strait jacket’s canvas held my arms tight. My six-two was horizontal on a stretcher and the two bruisers carried it and my 205 pounds easily down the long corridor. I was confused as modern art, and being in this stupid asylum didn’t help. I was dumped onto a bed, yelling like a fiend. A needle, a stinging sensation in my neck and it was lights out for me. I awoke with a light beaming upon my face. A blade moved upward through the beam of light. And suddenly I was wide awake, thinking: This idiot is about to stab me! Me? I’m Shell Scott private eye and I’m in a lot of trouble...”

Amador Montalba, Mexico City guide, and good friend of Shell Scott, alerts Scott to a wealthy woman in Mexico City who needs help. Shell is in Mexico City winding up another case and decides to follow up on the lead. Senora Lopez, wife of a prominent Mexican General, was secretly filmed during an extra-marital sex liaison with another man. After several payoffs to a blackmailer, she decides to turn the case over to Shell Scott. But the case is not one of simple blackmail. Communists appear to be involved.

A rash of hit and run deaths in Los Angeles has the press in an uproar. The police have no clue as to the primary cause and the deceased are all men who appear to have been brutalized prior to the time of the accident. But there are other aspects to the case and Shell Scott has been hired by a not so upstanding night club owner to investigate.

Mando Killion's world was shattered by Santa Anna's brutal invasion of Texas. Scion of a wealthy ranching dynasty, he saw his father die at the Alamo, his mother and brothers murdered, and his beautiful sister taken hostage by a debauched Mexican General. Mando came of age during the most violent days of Texas history, as a hearty band of patriots led by Sam Houston fought a bloody revolution for freedom from tyranny.

When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned artist, musician, and author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, began writing each other letters—a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. These letters soon grew into a powerful exchange about where we go from here.

"There was a fire in her eyes that was scorching me - me, who couldn't tell whether a dame wanted to kiss me or kill me! No matter how you look at it, 36-22-35 are magic numbers. They have a real message for me. I'm Shell Scott, the private eye, and I'm very good at figures. You might say I follow them very carefully. I've been following this one for several days and learned her name is Sherry. I hated to think she was mixed in murder. But somebody was planning to send me to my friendly neighborhood mortician and I had to find out who - or die trying."

In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell.... Yet, decades later, she returns to the family's farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her 'perfect' sister, Ruth, is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge. Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead - with a belt pulled tight around his neck.

This is the sequel to the Wolf Hunters as Rod, Wabi and Mukoki return for more adventures. In their possession is the secret of a great fortune. Romance, adventure and discovery awaits them as they start on that most thrilling of all trails, the trail of gold. The big silent North, mysterious in its age-old desolation, was just ahead of them. They were about to bury themselves in its secrets, to wrest from it the yellow treasure it guarded. They tingled excitedly at thoughts of encounters in that unknown world inhabited only by the things in the wild.

Reuben and Amy Corbin, brother and sister, are left destitute in 1886 when Quantrill's Raiders burn their Missouri farm, kill their father, and ride off with all the livestock and supplies. Reuben swears that somehow, someday, he will find and kill the individual raider he saw gun-down his father. With no means of support, brother and sister decide to try for Oregon. They find work and earn enough money to join up with a wagon train. The wagon train becomes the platform for a continuous array of adventures, hardships and close, new-found relationships.

On a cold January day in 2017, nearly two months before due date, Nile hippopotamus Bibi gave her keepers at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden a big surprise: a tiny newborn hippo, no bigger than a football. The first premature hippo born and raised in captivity, baby Fiona was an underdog from the start: She couldn't nurse, she couldn't stay hydrated, and she wasn't thriving. But the staff at the zoo knew they could save her.

Lenny Marks is good at not remembering. She has spent the last twenty years not thinking about the day her mother left her when she was still a child. Her stepfather's parting words, however, remain annoyingly unforgettable: 'You did this.' Now thirty-seven, Lenny prefers contentment and order over the unreliability of happiness and the messiness of relationships. She fills her days teaching at the local primary school, and her nights playing Scrabble with her pretend housemate, watching reruns of Friends and rearranging her thirty-six copies of The Hobbit.

In Shattered to Shining, nine women and one male domestic violence survivor describe how they were shattered, as their home became a place where physical and sexual violence, emotional and psychological control dominated their lives. Through persistence and courage, they have risen above their situation and come out the other side shining with positivity, strength, commitment, and empathy for others.