Showing results by narrator "Dion Graham" in All Categories

The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known - and cautiously avoided - by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling story of this desolate crossroad.

Hidden away from a harsh outside world, five young people have improvised a home in an abandoned airplane, a relic of their country's tumultuous past. Elimane, the bookworm, is as street-smart as he is wise. Clever Khoudiemata maneuvers to keep the younger kids - athletic, pragmatic Ndevui, thoughtful Kpindi, and especially their newest member, Namsa - safe and fed. But then Khoudi comes under the spell of the "beautiful people" - the fortunate sons and daughters of the elite.

When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.

What do a barracks for British troops in the Falklands War, a floating jail off the Bronx, and temporary housing for VW factory workers in Germany have in common? The Balder Scapa: a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually change to Finnboda 12. And then to Safe Esperia. And later on, to the Bibby Resolution. And after that . . . in short, a vessel with so many names, and so many fates, that to keep it in our sights—as the protagonist of this fascinating economic parable—Ian Kumekawa has no choice but to call it, simply, the Vessel.

Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.

Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why.

A golden Cadillac big enough to cross the ocean has been seen sailing along the streets of Harlem. A hit-and-run victim's been hit so hard she got embedded in the wall of a convent. A shootout with three heistmen dressed as cops has left an important politician in a coma - and a lot of money missing. And Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are the ones who have to piece it all together.

The late Grammy-winning founder of the legendary pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group tells his story and charts the rise of his legendary band in this sincere memoir that captures the heart and soul of an artist whose groundbreaking sound continues to influence music today. With a foreword by David Foster.

In 1959, America’s great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity. James Kaplan’s magnificent 3 Shades of Blue captures how that golden era came to be, and its pinnacle with the recording of Kind of Blue. It’s a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. It’s an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most.

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James' Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy.

Valentino's travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government soldiers, janjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation, and a string of unexpected romances. Ultimately, Valentino finds safety in Kenya and, just after the millennium, is finally resettled in the United States, from where this novel is narrated.

A landmark short story collection that put the more character-based New Wave science fiction on the map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards.

We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.

Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire at the Every. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Makazian, they look for the Every's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?

On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless--until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.

International hit man Gideon never misses his target, but when a job in Detroit goes bad, he should have killed his client - a cold-blooded woman who hired him to kill her husband - when he had the chance. Now the city's mayor and with money and power to spare, this woman will stop at nothing to see that Gideon gets what he deserves.

Raised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi "King" Tremain, caught up in his family's ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains' fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana.

Alex is twelve, and he did something very, very bad. A judge sentences him to spend his summer volunteering at a retirement home. He hasn’t seen his mom in a year, and Shady Glen’s geriatric residents seem like zombies to him. Josey is 107 and ready for his life to be over. He has evaded death many times, having survived ghettos, dragnets, and a concentration camp—all thanks to the heroism of a woman named Olka and his own ability to sew. But now he spends his days in room 206 at Shady Glen, refusing to speak and waiting (and waiting and waiting) to die. Until Alex knocks on Josey’s door…

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.

General Keith Brennan would rather face an army with his trusty rifle than attend another state dinner. When the president of the solar system is assassinated on Mars, Brennan is the obvious choice to investigate. If he comes up with the wrong answer, though, his career will be over.