
Banks of the River
The Kansas Murder Trilogy, Book 2
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Steven Molony
-
By:
-
Melvin Litton
About this listen
Jack Marshal, known as "the Lion," is a prideful sinner and reckless womanizer. When his 15-year-old daughter, Bonny, winds up pregnant by an old running buddy, Jack is outraged. And when the man is found dead, Jack is charged with murder.
Alongside the coming trial are the many goings-on in a small Kansas town in summer 1960. There's Ruthie, Jack's sister and local femme fatale, who does what with whom and when she pleases.
The old priest, Father Horabet, who harbors sins of his own.
Anna, Jack's wife, who quietly sustains herself and her daughter through the storm of scandal.
And Johnny, Jack's son, who faces howls of scorn pitching in little league baseball.
Finally, the town gathers for Jack's trial. Beyond the drama of guilt or innocence plays the question of how men and women grapple for meaning in their wary coexistence. For temptation like the sunrise returns each day, even as we imagine ourselves standing on the banks of the river, we are immersed, carried in a greater current.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The River We Remember
- A Novel
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.
-
-
This book makes me believe that there are good books written by good authors.
- By Va on 09-15-23
-
The Giver of Stars
- Reese's Book Club (A Novel)
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So, when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything.
-
-
About time!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-19
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Different Seasons
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 20 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four gripping novellas tied together by the changing of seasons. Hope Springs Eternal - "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption": An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge...the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Robert A. Raymond on 02-14-16
By: Stephen King
-
A Long Time Dead
- A D.I. Duncan McAdam Mystery (The Misty Isle, Book 1)
- By: J M Dalgliesh
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.
-
-
totally enjoyed this
- By Owl8988 on 11-21-23
By: J M Dalgliesh
-
This Tender Land
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1932: Located on the banks of the Gilead River in Minnesota, Lincoln School is home to hundreds of Native American boys and girls who have been separated from their families. The only two white boys in the school are orphan brothers Odie and Albert, who, under the watchful eyes of the cruel superintendent Mrs. Brickman, are often in trouble for misdeeds both real and imagined. The two boys' best friend is Mose, a mute Native American who is also the strongest kid in school. And they find another ally in Cora Frost, a widowed teacher who is raising her little girl, Emmy, by herself.
-
-
"Didn't need the underlying social message"
- By Curtis on 09-23-19
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The River We Remember
- A Novel
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.
-
-
This book makes me believe that there are good books written by good authors.
- By Va on 09-15-23
-
The Giver of Stars
- Reese's Book Club (A Novel)
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So, when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything.
-
-
About time!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-19
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Different Seasons
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 20 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four gripping novellas tied together by the changing of seasons. Hope Springs Eternal - "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption": An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge...the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Robert A. Raymond on 02-14-16
By: Stephen King
-
A Long Time Dead
- A D.I. Duncan McAdam Mystery (The Misty Isle, Book 1)
- By: J M Dalgliesh
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.
-
-
totally enjoyed this
- By Owl8988 on 11-21-23
By: J M Dalgliesh
-
This Tender Land
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1932: Located on the banks of the Gilead River in Minnesota, Lincoln School is home to hundreds of Native American boys and girls who have been separated from their families. The only two white boys in the school are orphan brothers Odie and Albert, who, under the watchful eyes of the cruel superintendent Mrs. Brickman, are often in trouble for misdeeds both real and imagined. The two boys' best friend is Mose, a mute Native American who is also the strongest kid in school. And they find another ally in Cora Frost, a widowed teacher who is raising her little girl, Emmy, by herself.
-
-
"Didn't need the underlying social message"
- By Curtis on 09-23-19
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Reformatory
- A Novel
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
-
-
Worth a listen
- By LadyLove on 11-07-23
By: Tananarive Due
-
Full Throttle
- Stories
- By: Joe Hill
- Narrated by: Zachary Quinto, Wil Wheaton, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this masterful collection of short fiction, Joe Hill dissects timeless human struggles in 13 relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In The Tall Grass”, one of two stories cowritten with Stephen King, basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix.
-
-
A Strong Collection
- By Celeste on 11-05-19
By: Joe Hill
-
October in the Earth
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Hawker
- Narrated by: Jackie Zebrowski
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Del Wensley, wife of the most celebrated preacher in Harlan County, tries to mind her place. Until her husband’s infidelity pushes an already strained marriage to a breaking point. Clinging to her last hope for self-respect, Del turns her back on the rigid life she’s known. A coal train is rolling through the valley. With her eyes wide open to the unfamiliar, and to the freedom she craves, Del takes to the rails.
-
-
Remarkable and Well-Done
- By Kentucky Bohemian on 01-07-24
By: Olivia Hawker
-
The Power of the Dog
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Savage, Annie Proulx - afterword
- Narrated by: Chad Michael Collins, Annie Proulx
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers—one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet—and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace.
-
-
Abrupt Ending and Hard to Follow Story
- By Trevor on 09-08-21
By: Thomas Savage, and others
-
Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
-
-
Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
-
Hellboy: Odd Jobs
- By: Christopher Golden
- Narrated by: Seth Podowitz
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1994, Mike Mignola created one of the most unique and visually arresting comics series to ever see print: Hellboy. Tens of thousands have followed the exploits of the World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator in comics form and in prose. Now, fans of the comic can enjoy the world of Hellboy as seen through the eyes of some of the brightest creative lights in horror and mystery fiction.
-
-
Extra stories for true fans
- By Daniel Wiffen on 07-24-21
-
The Half-Known Life
- What Matters Most When You're Running Out of Time
- By: Ryan Lindner
- Narrated by: Derek Shetterly
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I'm going down now", I said to a young woman a few seconds before the darkness-my first cardiac arrest. As I returned to work as a behavioral coach, it became maddening to hear about all-consuming, everyday problems and misguided priorities while I fought to merely remain conscious. The Half-Known Life challenges conventional thinking of success, identity, and personal change. Most often, truly profound change happens following events that shake someone to their core-a car accident, death of a family member, or cardiac arrest that pulls them into a moment of clarity.
-
-
Great book for question of life and death
- By Paul B. Henington on 04-07-25
By: Ryan Lindner
-
Composure
- The Art of Executive Presence
- By: Kate Purmal, Lee Epting, Joshua Isaac Smith
- Narrated by: Kate Purmal
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As boardrooms inch their way toward diversity, women, and those in other underrepresented groups who break into executive, managerial, and entrepreneurial ranks step into a spotlight that puts additional pressure on already demanding work and personal lives. Using proven techniques, relatable case studies, and comprehensive exercises, this book shows you how to compose yourself to elevate your presence at work, home, and ultimately, within yourself, no matter how hectic or overwhelming your life may feel.
By: Kate Purmal, and others
-
California Gold
- A Novel
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 31 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of California's Gold Rush, men left everything behind for the chance at striking it rich. Now, some 30 years after its peak, gold fever still entices adventurous Easterners like James Macklin Chance, a poor Pennsylvanian who is drawn to California by the dream of lasting wealth - a dream so powerful he'll stop at nothing to see it through.
-
-
Great story of CA history.
- By Mulfred on 06-23-20
By: John Jakes
-
Cloudmaker
- By: Malcolm Brooks
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The summer of 1937 will be a turning point for 14-year-old Houston “Huck” Finn. When he and a friend find a dead body in a local creek, a rare Lindbergh flight watch on its wrist, it seems like a sign. Huck is building his own airplane, a fact he has concealed from his mother. That summer also marks the arrival of his cousin Annelise, sent to live with the family under mysterious circumstances. As it turns out, she has had flying lessons - another sign.
-
-
Beautifully written and compelling story
- By Jessica Spencer on 06-03-22
By: Malcolm Brooks
-
A Life's Work
- Learning to Overrule My Mindless Brain
- By: Shep McKenney
- Narrated by: Shep McKenney
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shep McKenney has spent his life seeking what we all seek—happiness. In A Life’s Work he candidly shares his experiences of “having it all” in his professional and personal life yet feeling profoundly unfulfilled. Having all he knew to want, what was missing? This intimate memoir examines that question and its surprising answer.
-
-
The authors’s authentic passion comes through!
- By Lynnette Najimy on 04-15-23
By: Shep McKenney
-
Death Rides the Red River
- By: Jack LaFountain
- Narrated by: Cameron Buckner
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ex-Confederate officer Vernon Carson has tried his level best to peaceably distance himself from the war. Especially from certain haunting memories. But the horror has found him again and moved in right next door. With clenched jaws and clenched fists, Vern accepts the challenge before him. He knows he must settle the score. He owes it to his slaughtered neighbor. He owes it to his savaged troops. But most of all, he owes it to himself. The dice have been thrown.
-
-
Great book.
- By rajeev malakar on 10-13-21
By: Jack LaFountain
What listeners say about Banks of the River
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kelly Bowers
- 08-03-23
the dark heart of a small town summer
I'm always asking for "Calgon-take-me-away" type of stories, and this one filled the bill perfectly. I wasn't listening at work, I was a kid enjoying summer again. Fairs, sports, the Dairy Queen, the river. So vivid I could smell it.
All the characters I grew up around were there, and fully fleshed out, from the town gossip to larger-than-life Lion Jack.
Did he do it? I'm not going to say. You'll have to find out by peeling back the layers of this incredible story with an awesome narrator, who has perfect pacing and intonation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-10-23
Another great story by Melvin Litton!
I really enjoyed the entire story. Is it bad that I liked Jack in spite of his flaws? The characters were engaging, as were the plot and surrounding storylines. This was one of those audiobooks that I kept finding excuses to listen to. Plenty of intrigue, bad behavior, and mystery, combined with a visualization of Kansas summer that brought me back to my childhood.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- rebecca
- 12-31-23
An excellent book from start to finish!
So many stories within the main story. Excellent narration on the audible form.
I really appreciate each character, their descriptions, their personalities and flavors shown through 
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!