Showing results by narrator "Tom Stechschulte" in All Categories

San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay". In this superb collection, virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of SF’s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood.

As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories - when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a Black man charged with raping a White woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was 12 years old.

Two young friend, Max Glickman and Manny Washinski, get together in an abandoned air-raid shelter and create a comic-book history of Jewish suffering. Years later, Manny is in jail for a horrible crime and Max is a comic book artist. After Manny's release from prison decades later, the two meet again when Max is hired by a production company to write a film treatment based on Manny's life.

Will Brite is a Slash Five cowboy working in the Middle Concho region of Texas in the winter of 1884 when a blizzard descends upon him - the likes of which he has never seen. Trapped under his horse and entangled in a barbed wire fence, Will finds an unexpected (and unwelcome) savior in the form of Zeke Boles, a former slave on the run from a bloody, guilt-filled past.

A crime of unfathomable horror has a ripple-like effect on four profoundly different souls. Helen, a troubled inmate at Sloatsburg women's prison, is serving a life sentence for the murder of her children. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy, has forsworn the Park Avenue practice for which she trained in favor of the chief of psychiatry job at Sloatsburg.

All the good sheriff of Prophecy County, Oklahoma, wanted out of his well-earned vacation to Las Vegas was some fun and relaxation. Milt certainly didn't gamble on finding his own kin embroiled in murder and battery: but that's exactly what he's dealt in Vegas Nerve.

Warren Spooner was born after a prolonged delivery in a makeshift delivery room in a doctor's office in Milledgeville, Georgia, on the first Saturday of December, 1956. His father died shortly afterward, long before Spooner had even a memory of his face, and was replaced eventually by a once-brilliant young naval officer, Calmer Ottosson, recently court-martialed out of service.

Kate and Nick Kavanaugh (lawyer and cop respectively) take in young Rainey Teague, whose parents have died under mysterious circumstances. Rainey is a handful. Well, actually, Rainey is turning out to be someone - or something - downright scary: a shape-shifting time-bending little boy who will have to resist being taken over by "Nothing." Will Kate and Nick be able to save him? Will the mirror they have kept up in the attic ultimately be their downfall? When more disappearances start to happen, where do they turn?

No child should ever be a soldier. Jon Moore knew that better than most, having learned to fight to survive before he’d hit puberty. So when a former comrade, Alissa Lim, asks for his help in rescuing a group of children pressed into service by rebels on a planet no one cares to save, he agrees. Only later does he realize he’s signed up to do far more than he’d ever imagined.

An incisive novelist in the Southern tradition, Michael Morris has garnered comparisons to Harper Lee and Flannery O’Connor. Set during the tumult of World War I, Man in the Blue Moon follows Ella Wallace, a single mother fighting a corrupt banker to keep her family’s ancestral land. So when a mysterious man arrives on her doorstep with promises of help, Ella reluctantly places her trust in him. But it soon becomes clear that things aren’t on the up and up, putting Ella’s land - and her family - in jeopardy

The novels of New York Times best-selling author J.F. Freedman combine gritty realism with gripping suspense. Bird’s-Eye View is a vivid thriller that will keep listeners enthralled from start to finish. Ex-collegiate professor turned loner, Fritz Tullis dropped out of academia for all the right reasons. He now spends his time thinking, drinking, fishing and photographing birds from a sweltering, screen-windowed shack at the edge of a swamp in southern Maryland.

In War in the Middle East, the veteran journalist offers a fascinating account of his early 1970s reports from the volatile desert region amidst Black September and the Yom Kippur War. This insider’s view of life in a war zone shows Hampton trying to write stories inside a besieged hotel with no electricity or water as fighting rages all around. Hitching rides with reluctant taxi drivers and soldiers, he witnesses aerial dogfights, tank skirmishes, and summary executions.

The author of numerous works of historical nonfiction, John Milliken Thompson put his extensive researching skills to good use when penning his critically acclaimed first novel, The Reservoir. Based on real events in 1885 Virginia, Thompson’s gripping tale is the story of a pregnant woman found floating in the city reservoir - and of the shocking details that emerge during the subsequent investigation.

Deep in the mountains of North Carolina, there once lived a young boy with such a poor memory that he sometimes forgot his own name. Now, Plug Honeycut's mother loved him. So she was the only one who had enough faith in her son to send him on an errand. Leaving their hilltop cabin, he started toward the distant country store to buy some soap. As Plug trudges along the path, over the hills and streams, he also follows the erratic trail of his elusive memory.

With tales of rugged heroes and gun-barrel justice, Ralph Compton became a beacon for aspiring Western authors. Marcus Galloway maintains this legacy with Rusted Tin. Sheriff of Keith County, Nebraska, Zeke Wolpert wears a tarnished badge - taking bribes from criminals and turning a blind eye to their misdeeds. But with a shipment from Wells Fargo on its way into town, Zeke is torn between visions of setting himself up for life or finally living up to his job’s mandate.

Reporter Lester Booker joins legendary gunfighter Rance March on the trail of a dangerous outlaw to learn how the West was really won.

Richard Parker delivers a provocative and eye-opening look at the most explosive and controversial state in America, where everything is bigger, bolder - and is shaping the future of America. Americans today are reckoning with a new Texas - that love-it-or-hate-it giant slice of America that has sparked controversy, bred presidents, and fomented change from the Civil War to the election of George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

The job looks simple enough: Jon Moore, the nanotech-enhanced, world-weary, soldier of fortune, agrees to help a con man, a friend from a part of his past he’d rather forget, protect a very special young boy. The deal doesn’t stay simple, as each move Jon and Lobo make results in more danger and more enemies. The situation grows even more complicated when a beautiful woman with an unclear agenda joins them in their quest.

Jon Moore grew up in a prison laboratory. When he escaped with nothing but his body's nanotech enhancements and more anger than even a long lifetime could wash away, an entire planet died behind him. Memories of the things he’d done still haunted him; because of them, he often ended up helping those in need. His kindnesses frequently didn't work out well. This one really didn't work out well. This one really didn't work out well. It hurled Jon and Lobo, the intelligent assault vehicle and Jon's only friend, down an accelerating, ever more dangerous spiral.

Ben has just returned from a war waged against a nameless enemy. To avoid being nabbed by police and forced to work in a factory, he’ll need to find a wife. But to do that, he must wear a bachelor’s suit—and the tailor won’t make one for him.