Showing results by narrator "William Dufris" in All Categories

In Botswana, people of the north live in harmony with the wildlife, yet predators and poachers roam freely. The lions may be kings, but hyenas will steal their prey. A Chobe Game Park pack led by the alpha female is especially fearless. The locals call her Kotsi Mosadi, Setswana for Danger Woman.

Twelve-year-old Simon Thorn's life has never been easy or normal, but things like being bullied at school and living in a cramped Manhattan apartment with his uncle Darryl are nothing compared to his biggest secret: he can talk to animals. But when his mom is suddenly kidnapped by a herd of rats, Simon finds out that he, his mom, and his uncle are all Animalgams - people born with the ability to change into animals at will.

The High, a band with a few hit songs in the late 1970s, have reunited to play the nostalgia circuit at casinos. But for bassist Barry and lead singer Cliff, this tour promises to be unforgettable and even more worthwhile than ever. In this fourth installment of the Toronto series, these two band members turn the tables on the gritty underworld of casinos, as they rob the loan sharks and drug dealers who work at every stop of the tour.

Former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier Jack Pilgrim has it all - big bucks, a successful security business with plush government contracts, a beautiful wife. Then Pilgrim's partner, Merc Conrad, goes missing in Afghanistan with a chunk of government cash and most of the company's assets. The CIA threatens to throw Pilgrim in jail if he doesn't find Merc and return the money.

For any normal teenage boy, having two and a half younger sisters would be enough to deal with. But Simwan Deavy's life isn't normal. His family is non-Ord - short for "non-Ordinary" - which means that at school, he and his sisters learn hexing and enchanting along with history and math. It also means they have a ghost for an uncle and a cat who talks. Still, everything is going well for Simwan - until a bottle of Truth is stolen from the local pharmacy.

A jaded homicide detective working a serial murder case is teamed up with a new partner - a law enforcer from an alien race. Big-city life in the near future is full of violence and tension for Saigo City homicide detective David Silver. His latest assignment is to track down a serial killer dubbed "Machete Man" because he hacks his victims to pieces. But Silver and his partner Mel Burnett just caught a break: One of Machete Man's intended victims - an elderly woman who would've been number six - escapes.

Saigo City is caught in the grip of a savage murder spree by a perp who kills without compunction, then eliminates the evidence by torching the crime scenes. After a private residence is set on fire, killing two adults and four children, the hunt intensifies for this monster who seems intent on destroying both humans and Elakis. But there may be something else going on.

Homicide cop David Silver and his Elaki partner hunt an arsonist/killer who exterminates humans and aliens alike. Saigo City is caught in the grip of a savage murder spree by a perp who kills without compunction, then eliminates the evidence by torching the crime scenes. After a private residence is set on fire, killing two adults and four children, the hunt intensifies for this monster who seems intent on destroying both humans and Elakis.

Saigo City police detective David Silver and his partner Mel Burnett have been called to an unusual crime scene: a bed where four Elaki pouchlings have been smothered. The killer appears to be the babies' alien mother, who just shot herself and is in critical condition. But there are rumors the murders were politically motivated and carried out by the Izicho - the Elaki secret police. At the same time, cops are investigating other recent attacks against both humans and Elakis.

When private detective Sam Blackman agrees to help his partner and lover, Nakayla Robertson, conduct a fundraiser for orphaned twins, he does so to ease his conscience. The boys' parents were killed in a courtroom shootout where Sam was the key witness against the twins' father. The charity event, a nighttime ghost tour of the legendary haunted sites of Asheville, North Carolina, seems harmless enough.

If there's one thing Warlock Marcus Shifter hates, it's the Delwinn Council, the governing body of the magical community. Between the grudges many on the council harbor because he walked away from magic and his suspicions that someone is working to undermine a 20-year peace with the nonmagical Normals, they really don't get along. Marcus has spent months hunting the traitor, infiltrating the Council and helping with "menial tasks" like repairing unstable rifts in the fabric of reality.

Warlock Marcus Shifter has been sent on the most dangerous mission of his career: travel to the remote Minotaur nation and convince them not to abandon the tenuous peace agreement between the humans and the paranormals. But securing that peace requires his best friend, Steve the Minotaur, to help him find a way into the isolated homeland. A homeland Steve left behind long ago, intending to bury his complicated past.

The crew of the spaceship Juno expected to find a fertile planet ready for colonization. Instead they discovered a fiery grave and a space station filled with corpses. What had happened here? A natural disaster...or an alien weapon capable of destroying entire worlds? What were they willing to do, and what price were they willing to pay, to prevent another disaster?

Speed: the most demonized - and misunderstood - drug in the land. Deprived of the ingrained romantic mysticism of the opiate or the cosmopolitan chic of cocaine or the mundane tolerance of marijuana, there is no sympathy for this devil. Yet speed - crystal meth, amphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Adderall; crank, spizz, chickenscratch, oblivious marching powder, the go-fast - is the most American of drugs: twice the productivity at half the cost, and equal opportunity for all.

From the introduction to Philadelphia Noir: "America's first great city, first capital, and first industrial metropolis contained from the beginning the mix of poor workers and elite culture, of ethnic enclaves and religious intolerance, of easy skullduggery and flesh-pot possibilities, that led Lincoln Steffens in 1903 to famously rule it 'corrupt and contented'."

From the introduction by David L. Ulin: "For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when then summer trade began."

For generations, bitter old Andy Mattson terrified the children of Hillside and puzzled his adult neighbors. How did the scowling old codger, who seemed to spend his life stroking his cat on the front porch, support himself? How did he pass the days? And why did he die such a gruesome death? The police find Andy dead on his sofa, covered in blood, eyes wide with fear. The most likely suspect is the dead man’s cat, a howling beast that resembles a trapped badger.

When Cherokee burial remains are unearthed on the site of a local cemetery's expansion, Barry Clayton, part-time deputy and full-time undertaker, finds his dual occupations colliding. Then, during the interment of the wife of one of Gainesboro's most prominent citizens, Cherokee activist Jimmy Panther leads a protest. Words and fists fly.

Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind - it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked.

Andre de Laurent is the second son of an extremely wealthy family, which basically means he'll always be number two. That is, until his mother's uncle dies and leaves him a multi-billion-dollar fortune. So what's the trouble? Andre has 60 days to take a wife, and he'll have to remain married for one year or forfeit the inheritance to distant relatives - who are hell-bent on claiming the inheritance as their own.