Showing results by narrator "Keith Szarabajka" in All Categories

Backflash finds Parker checking out the scene on a Hudson River gambling boat. Parker’s no fan of either relaxation or risk, however, so you can be sure he’s playing with house money - and he’s willing to do anything to tilt the odds in his favor. Featuring a great cast of heisters, a striking setting, and a new introduction by Westlake’s close friend and writing partner, Lawrence Block, this classic Parker adventure deserves a place of honor in any crime fan’s library.

If you enjoy wine - but can’t articulate why - you’re not alone! From terroir to global varieties, Wine: A Beginner’s Guide breaks down the complex bouquets of winemaking and tasting into ways that are fun and easy to understand. Learn what really makes a cabernet sauvignon red. Taste how it’s possible to detect a hint of leather, chocolate, or even rubber in a single sip. Confidently discuss the subtleties of different types of grapes with the guide that has everything you need to know to grow your love of wine.

Months after a super-EMP attack devastated the United States, the country is now unrecognizable. Major cities are run by gangs, survivors are dying of starvation and the government is falling victim to lawlessness. Those who were prepared for the end find that they weren't really prepared at all. While some seek vengeance for their losses, others are determined to restore the nation. Gordon, Samantha, Sebastian, Barone, Connor and Pablo are all on different paths, but they are all in search of a home away from chaos.

In this second collection in the Music and Murder Mystery series, nine award-winning, bestselling authors have written their own interpretations of the Thriller song list. With original work from some of the best mystery authors out there, the anthology includes stories from Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, William Kent Krueger, Dahlia Rose, and David R. Slayton, among others. With poignant, frightening, and intriguing stories from some of the best writers in the genre, this eerie collection is sure to keep you up at night—and maybe even haunt your dreams.

After the bloodbath of Butcher’s Moon, the action-filled blowout Parker adventure, Donald Westlake said, “Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone.” But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker’s as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, “suddenly, he came back from the dead” - and the resulting novel, Comeback, showed that neither Stark nor Parker had lost a single step. Knocking over a highly lucrative religious revival show, Parker reminds us that not all criminals don ski masks.

A new world arises from the ashes of the old...but the fight for survival has only just begun. In the day of the nomad, oceans flooded the continents and the Earth split open, pouring darkness into the skies. Jessica Rollins survived, but at what cost? The key to humanity's survival may lie in the backpack she recovered from her father, in data he collected more than 30 years before. Her father's final words circle around and around in her head. What does the data mean?

For the centennial of his birth, the defining wunderkind of modern entertainment gets his due in a groundbreaking new biography of his early years - from his first forays in theater and radio to the inspiration and making of Citizen Kane. No American artist or entertainer has enjoyed a more dramatic rise than Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before.

A collection of three loosely connected crime novellas, each set in a distinct era, Catalina Eddy is a gritty, hard-boiled exploration into the immutable police underworld of Southern California. Reminiscent of James Ellroy's grittiness and Raymond Chandler's dark wit, Catalina Eddy is Daniel Pyne's clever homage to - and skillful deconstruction of - traditional noir storytelling. Moody, enthralling, and keenly imagined, Catalina Eddy evokes the characters and ambiance of a singular, peculiar landscape with cinematic flair.

Serenity ran away from home when her father was convicted of bribery. For two years, she drifted around the American Southwest, finally finding refuge in the arms of Azrael, a charismatic cult leader whose religion was founded upon blood. Long after Serenity's disappearance, the police find a mass grave containing six dead girls on Azrael's property. Thinking his daughter has been murdered, Serenity's father claims her life insurance and promptly disappears. Now it's Dave Brandstetter's problem.

Stan Fischler, the dean of American hockey journalists and best-selling author of more than 60 books on hockey, profiles the heroes of Hockeytown in Detroit Red Wings: Greatest Moments and Players. One of the National Hockey League's "Original Six", few teams in professional hockey have enjoyed more success than the franchise in Detroit. Among the players Fischler glorifies are the immortal Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk, Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, and Sid Abel, all players whose numbers reside on banners in the rafters of Joe Louis Arena.

Two years ago, Martha didn't know that Alan existed. Now, they're married - it was easy to say yes to someone so sweet. But when Martha thinks she sees Alan's mask slip, she starts to fear that the conferences he travels the country to attend might be a cover for something far more sinister. As her research unearths a string of dead women, she enlists the help of Lily Kintner, an old friend from grad school. What Martha doesn't know is that Lily has a dark side of her own . . .

Dave Brandstetter's afternoon does not begin well: His ex-boyfriend picks him up at the airport, and the ride home - in bumper-to-bumper Los Angeles traffic - is one long argument between them. The insurance investigator's day gets worse when he finds a man - bloody, rain-soaked, and ice cold - lying on his porch, killed by a stab wound while Dave was out of town. There is a serial killer loose in Los Angeles, and this man is his sixth victim. Like the others, he had already been marked for death - by the unforgiving plague known as AIDS.

In a small village in New York, mob bosses from all over the country - Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Cuba boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Paul Castellano - were nabbed by Sergeant Edgar D. Croswell as they gathered to sort out a bloody war of succession. For years FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had adamantly denied the existence of the Mafia, but Robert Kennedy immediately recognized the shattering importance of the Apalachin summit....

Something big is coming...big enough to destroy the entire solar system...and it's heading straight for Earth. That's what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard's exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter and wife, who are vacationing in Italy: Something is coming, he tells them, a hundred times the mass of our sun. We can't see it, we don't know what it is, but it's there.

It's bad enough when someone you know is brutally murdered; it's worse when the guy was a paranoid schizophrenic helplessly bound to a wheelchair. Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski tried to look after Alfie Aldergreen, as had others around the Village of Southampton, but now they were forced to wonder what else they could have done.

Rick Wendell's ranch is far from town. A remote, dusty hideaway, its only inhabitants are Rick, his aging mother, and her horses. One night, Rick's mother returns from the movies to find Rick lying on the floor, stark naked and with a gaping bullet wound in his chest. Standing over him is his lover, a mustachioed hippie, who swears he did not fire the gun that he's holding. The case seems open-and-shut, but Dave Brandstetter is not satisfied.

In 2007, two CIA spooks meet with an American colonel in military intelligence. The war is going badly, and President Bush, who steadfastly refuses to back down, remains unchallenged at home as Democrats and Republicans focus on the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy will yield enriched uranium by 2012 - uranium that could be used to manufacture suitcase nukes. The US military is too drained to invade Iran, and a preemptive strike is out of the question.

As Sam Acquillo tells us in the early part of Back Lash, "Not everyone gets to live their adult lives orbiting a central mystery." But that's how it's been for Sam, whose entire existence has been defined by a single horrific event. Now that event has reached out from the deep past, an unwanted visitor, and Sam is forced to unpack, like a Russian doll, secrets within secrets, each more ominous than the one before.

They call it Stormland: a sprawling, largely abandoned region of the southeastern coast of the USA, where climate change’s extreme weather conditions have brought about a “perfect storm” of perpetual tempests; where hurricane-strength storms return day after day, 365 days a year. The heart of Stormland is Charleston, South Carolina, a flooded ruin where hundreds of people remain for their own peculiar reasons; where thugs prey on the weak, and a strangely benevolent cult tries to keep everyone insanely sane. Here, plutocratic evil takes advantage of Stormland’s lawlessness.

Simeon Grist takes a case that leads him to the phantom neighborhoods of Los Angeles' lost children. Missing 13-year-old Aimee Sorrell ran all the way from Kansas to be a star. But Aimee's trail soon leads Simeon to the city morgue, the first stop on a perilous journey to find out what happens to America's lost children when they go looking for love in all the wrong places.