Showing results by narrator "Graham Winton" in All Categories

CarolSue and her sister, Louisa, are best friends, but haven't had much in common since CarolSue married Charlie, moved to Atlanta, and swapped shoes covered with Indiana farm dust and chicken poop for fresh pedicures and afternoon bridge. Charlie's sudden death leaves CarolSue so adrift that she surrenders to Louisa's plan for her to move back home. But canning vegetables and feeding chickens are alien to CarolSue. Then Louisa's son, Reverend Gary, arrives with an abandoned infant and a dubious story. He begs the women to look after the baby while he locates the mother.

Owen and Duncan are childhood friends who've grown up in picturesque Niagara Falls - known to them by the grittier name Cataract City. As the two know well, there's more to the bordertown than meets the eye: behind the gaudy storefronts and sidewalk vendors, past the hawkers of tourist T-shirts and cheap souvenirs live the real people who scrape together a living by toiling at the Bisk, the local cookie factory. And then there are the truly desperate, those who find themselves drawn to the borderline.

With works that embody the soaring spirit and gritty allure of the famed Ralph Compton novels, Joseph A. West captures the full flavor of the West with his hard-hitting tales. John Tone is a ruthless bounty hunter willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Once he’s set his sights on someone, that fugitive’s as good as caught. But when he encounters a cunning criminal from the Barbary Coast, the tables are turned.

Sandy Cooper lives an uneventful life as a guidance counselor and coach in a suburban junior high school. Uneventful, that is, until a word of advice to a troubled student embroils him in a forbidden relationship and the exposure of a twisted murder. In this thoroughly enjoyable novel reminiscent of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, Michael Oren evokes a time of racial, political, and social turmoil in the 1970s.

What was it like to meet our 16th president? Was he really as kind and honest as we perceive him to be today? This astonishing new book is an inspiring and eye-opening collection of stories, anecdotes, and quotes from people who sought out Lincoln for his wisdom, his help, or just his irresistible wit. He offered a patient ear to almost anyone who came to see him, and his compassion and understanding bettered the lives of hundreds who crossed his threshold.

When self-defense trainer Charlie Sharp is nearly killed by an explosion, Wyoming detective Brian Bradshaw finds himself with a murder investigation on his hands. And worse, it involves one of his own. Now bodies are turning up, and Brian suspects Charlie knows more than she’s telling. Trusting each other is hard enough. But knowing her secrets might be more danger than he bargained for.

After Grace Clark accidentally witnesses a brutal murder, she tumbles headlong into a world of motorcycle gangs, cults and a young girl's secrets. Dogged chief deputy sheriff Holden Powell's determined to help discover what's wreaking havoc on their idyllic western town this Christmas. The rancher-turned-lawman has something to prove, and he won’t let anything happen to Grace—not on his watch.

With debt-burdened governments and businesses worldwide about to go bust, a cabal of Wall Street big shots plot to destroy the globe’s stock exchanges. In 24 hours, a powerful computer worm will smash the exchanges and spark an international panic, pushing a debt-laden world into the abyss. But one person, who works for their bank as a computer expert, spots the worm embedded deep in its network. Cassy Levin invents a program to destroy the cyber-intruder. Angered by Cassy’s discovery, her bosses order her kidnapping.

Seven years ago, Terry Archer and his family experienced a horrific ordeal that nearly cost them their lives. Today, the echoes of that fateful night are still audible. Terry's wife, Cynthia, is living separate from her husband and daughter after her own personal demons threatened to ruin her relationship with them permanently. Their daughter, Grace, is rebelling against her parents' seemingly needless overprotection. Terry is just trying to keep his family together. And the entire town is reeling from the senseless murder of two elderly locals.

Charlie Pike is fulfilling Judge Henry Dryden's dying wish by escorting him to Texas. But an outlaw out for revenge is on their trail, determined that they will never reach their destination....

Private detective Sam Jones’s six-year search for an 8-year-old boy ends with gunshots in a basement and cold bodies that would eventually lead the police straight to him. Jones had never promised Ruth Verne that he would find her son alive, but he knew deep down that she believed he would - worse, he had believed it too. Jones wasn’t ready to look Ruth in the eye and tell her he had failed. He wasn’t ready to admit that he lost everything and had nothing to show for it. But an unsigned note scrawled on a bathroom door gives Jones a second chance - a chance for redemption.

Scott Blackwood won the AWP Award for We Agreed to Meet Just Here, his lyrical debut novel about the dark silence left behind in the wake of loss. A young lifeguard, a doctor sick with cancer, and two children have disappeared, leaving no trace. It’s only when they start to resurface, in small moments and sudden flashes of consciousness, that the true gravity of their existence comes to light.

There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. This thought-provoking book argues that, ironically, science’s credibility is being undermined by tools created by scientists themselves. Scientific disinformation and damaging conspiracy theories are rife because of the Internet that science created, the scientific demand for empirical evidence and statistical significance leads to data torturing and confirmation bias, and data mining is fuelled by the technological advances in Big Data and the development of ever-increasingly powerful computers.

Called to the scene of a killer’s latest victim, Laramie PD chief Willa Nelson and Sheriff Daniel Clark must work together despite jurisdictional differences. But as their investigation leads to a cold case, Willa has to trust Daniel with the truth. As the bodies pile up and the pressure mounts, they find themselves facing more than one unstoppable killer…

Rocco Sharp fears he’s placed Mercy McCoy in peril. The undercover agent has convinced the cult leader’s daughter to get him into the Shining Light’s compound. With five days to thwart a violent plot, Rocco’s feelings for Mercy put his assignment at risk. As the connection between them deepens, Rocco knows he’ll have to be the one to tell Mercy who he really is. Otherwise, they’ll never have a chance beyond this critical mission.

A friendly, rotund cat visits six diverse people in an busy urban neighborhood, receiving snacks and love. When a near-accident threatens the cat, the neighbors pull together as a community. Told from the point of view of each of the neighbors, this heartfelt story reflects the universal desire for connection and companionship.

Old Mike Varney is a callous, bad-tempered ranch owner of the Pitchfork Ranch, located near the Nevada Mesa during the second half of the 19th century. Bill Varney, his 23-year-old son, is often mistreated by his father; he is thinking about leaving the ranch and starting over somewhere else. His sister, Vida, and his girlfriend, Marian Tracy, try to keep him from leaving. Several of the local citizens and ranchers, tired of Mike Varney' s ruthless behavior and the fear of the old man's plans to buy up the local ranches, pay a gunslinger named Ace Kehoe to gun him down.

Set to the cranking beat and amphetamine buzz of Vancouver's early punk scene, Zero Avenue follows Frankie Del Rey, a talented and rising punk star who runs just enough dope on the side to pay the bills and keep her band, Middle Finger, together. The trouble is she's running it for Marty Sayles, a powerful drug dealer who controls the Eastside with a fist. When Frankie strikes up a relationship with Johnny Falco, the owner of one of the only Vancouver clubs willing to give punk a chance, she finds out he's having his own money problems.

Rene Beckman is a dishonored ex-cop with only two things on his mind: his new boat, the Triggerfish; and his hot date, an environmentalist named Vicki. When the two unknowingly dock the boat in the same secluded cove as a Mexican cartel's drug submarine, the date ends with a bang. With the cartel's coke-for-guns deal with local bikers torched by Beckman, he's forced to go on the run with half the underworld chasing him through the streets of Vancouver and the waters surrounding it.

Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family - a wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year travelling abroad, returning much changed, just as her now ex-husband falls ill. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother struck about love and money continue to shape all their lives.