Showing results by narrator "Paul Costanzo" in All Categories

Organized crime - the Italian American kind - has long been a source of popular entertainment and legend. Now Thomas Reppetto provides a balanced history of the Mafia's rise - from the 1880s to the post-World War II era - that is as exciting as it is authoritative. Structuring his narrative around a series of case histories featuring such infamous characters as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience and access to unseen documents to show us a locally grown Mafia.

In his first book, author Jason Smith explores the depravity and desperation required to maintain an opiate addiction so fierce, he finds himself jumping continents to avoid jail time and learns the hard way that some demons cannot be outrun. While teaching in Europe, he meets a prostitute who secures drugs for him at the dangerous price of helping out the Russian Mafia; in China he gets his Percocet and Xanax fixes but terrifies a crowd of children and parents at his job in the process.

Erin Pulaski had uncovered a bombshell in her investigation: The Culovort shortage is set to bring in a windfall profit in excess of two billion dollars. Upon learning of the murder, Erin is certain it has something to do with her findings, but she risks exposing herself by coming forward. As the feds move in, the case becomes even more complicated for Erin, since the murder of a foreign national on federal land can mean only that the pharmaceutical house has a secret of epic proportions.

She was just an ordinary mortal...until death catapulted her into a seductive world she never imagined. "You're dead" is so not what Allie Watson wants to hear. Unfortunately, it explains a lot. Like the dark, angelically handsome man who ferried her to this strange, hidden land. The last thing she remembers is stepping off a curb in front of a cross-town bus. Now she's surrounded by gorgeous fallen angels with an unfortunate taste for blood---and they really don't want her around. Not exactly how she pictured heaven.

Psychologist John Gottman has spent twenty years studying what makes a marriage last. Now you can use his tested methods to evaluate, strengthen, and maintain your own long-term relationship. This breakthrough book guides you through a series of self-tests designed to help you determine what kind of marriage you have, where your strengths and weaknesses are, and what specific actions you can take to help your marriage.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James MacGregor Burns devoted his legendary career to the study of leadership in all its aspects - from politics to business. Leadership, Burns' pioneering study, introduces the highly influential theory of "transformational leadership", stating that the best leaders are those who inspire others to come together toward the achievement of higher aims.

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies provides an intimate examination of the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants in our contemporary food system. An anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, Seth M. Holmes shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmes' material is visceral and powerful. He trekked with his companions illegally through the desert into Arizona and was jailed with them.

One in every five kids suffers from a diagnosable anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, when parents or professionals offer help in traditional ways, they unknowingly reinforce a child's worry and avoidance. This audiobook exposes the most common anxiety-enhancing patterns-including reassurance, accommodation, avoidance, while offering exercises and techniques to change both the children's and the parental patterns of thinking and behaving.

Was murder part of the game? Seventeen-year-old Kat McDonough grew up with theater in her blood - and a penchant for make-believe. More than a decade older, Seth Mazzaglia was well-known in the community theater circle of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He, too, had a rich inner life - and he soon had Kat convinced that they were soul mates. To intensify their bond, Seth lured Kat into a world of violent sex and role-playing, where she was his slave. Enter Lizzi Marriott, the new girl in town. And when she accepts an invitation to Kat and Seth's apartment....

Throughout most of evolution humans walked barefoot and slept on the ground, largely oblivious that the surface of the Earth contains limitless healing energy. Science has discovered this energy as free-flowing electrons constantly replenished by solar radiation and lightning. Few people know it, but the ground provides a subtle electric signal that maintains health and governs the intricate mechanisms that make our bodies work - just like plugging a lamp into a power socket makes it light up.

In The Optimistic Child, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman offers parents, teachers, and coaches a well-validated program to prevent depression in children. In a 30-year study, Seligman and his colleagues discovered the link between pessimism-dwelling on the most catastrophic cause of any setback-and depression. Seligman shows adults how to teach children the skills of optimism that can help them combat depression, achieve more on the playing field and at school, and improve their physical health.

FBI Agent Dillon Savich is on a challenging case involving the kidnapping of two teenage boys when trouble boils up in his personal life. His younger sister Lily has crashed her Explorer into a redwood in California's Hemlock Bay. Is it another suicide attempt, the second since the loss of her young daughter some seven months before? Savich and Sherlock discover that four of Lily's paintings, left to her by their very famous grandmother, artist Sarah Elliot, now worth millions, are at the heart of an intricate conspiracy.

Sometimes the easiest cases are the hardest. The defendant absolutely, positively murdered her own mother. She is also absolutely, positively mentally ill. Homicide prosecutor David Brunelle is tasked with holding her responsible despite the best efforts of her defense team, which includes a psychologist who's convinced that she's innocent. As the case proceeds, the pressures mount, and Brunelle begins to question his own sanity. Will Brunelle crack the case, or will the case crack him?

A serial killer is on the loose, and it’s up to FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock to bring him down. They soon discover the killer has blood ties to an infamous and now long-dead monster. Savich and Sherlock are joined by agents Lucy Carlyle and Cooper McKnight, and the chase is on. At the same time, Agent Lucy Carlyle learns from her dying father that her grandfather didn’t simply walk away from his family twenty-two years ago: he was, in fact, murdered by his wife, Lucy’s grandmother.

Why is it that some people have all the elements of success - education, skills, integrity, motivation - but can't seem to move from effectiveness to excellence in their careers? Behavior expert Joe Navarro reveals the long-sought answer. Louder Than Words teaches how to master nonverbal intelligence, the ability to interpret and nonverbal signals - in poker terms, "tells" - in business, to assess and influence others.

Renowned for its dazzling beauty and delectable cuisine, the Mediterranean island of Sicily has historically one of the healthiest diets in the world. Recent studies show that this eating style can reduce the risk of developing Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and depression, and that it can even increase fertility rates! Now the succulent flavors and myriad benefits of Sicilian cooking are yours to savor in the very first weight-loss program that will help you effortlessly shed unwanted pounds.

The rich are not only getting richer, they are becoming more dangerous. Starting in the early 1980s the top one percent broke away from the rest of us to become the most unstable force in the economy. An elite that had once been the flat line on the American income charts - models of financial propriety - suddenly set off on a wild ride of economic binges. Not only do they control more than a third of the country's wealth, their increasing vulnerability to the booms and busts of the stock market wreak havoc on our consumer economy, financial markets, communities, and government finances.

A serial killer is on the loose, and it’s up to FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock to bring him down. They soon discover the killer has blood ties to an infamous and now long-dead monster. Savich and Sherlock are joined by agents Lucy Carlyle and Cooper McKnight, and the chase is on. At the same time, Agent Lucy Carlyle learns from her dying father that her grandfather didn’t simply walk away from his family 22 years ago: he was, in fact, murdered by his wife, Lucy’s grandmother.

Entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, and upward mobility: These traditions are at the heart of the free enterprise system, and have long been central to America's exceptional culture. In recent years, however, policymakers have dramatically weakened these traditions - by exploding the size of government, propping up their corporate cronies, and trying to reorient our system from rewarding merit to redistributing wealth. Arthur C. Brooks shows that this trend cannot be reversed through materialistic appeals.

He's a devil of an angel. She's an angel of a demon. Angels and demons don't mix. Azazel should have extinguished the deadly Lilith when he had the chance. Now, faced with a prophecy that will force him to betray the memory of his one true love and wed the Demon Queen, he cannot end her life until she leads him to Lucifer. Finding the First is the Fallen's only hope for protecting mankind from Uriel's destruction, but Azazel knows that ignoring his simmering desire for the Lilith will be almost as impossible.