Showing results by narrator "Edoardo Ballerini" in All Categories

When Gus Dupin, literary critic and scholar, finds himself invited to the funeral of Peggy Firmin, celebrated novelist and now murder victim, he is determined to find out who killed her and why. As his investigation gets underway, it is not long before he finds himself at the center of an experiment at Marlow AI, a large language model company.

Ignazio was destined to rule Casa Florio since birth, a fearless drive that pulses through his veins, pushing him to look beyond Sicily towards Rome, Europe and its courts, the naval domination of the Mediterranean, and eventually the purchase of the entire Archipelago of the Egadi to build his dazzling empire. But his heart is black as ice. To seize Casa Florio, he abandoned the love of his life—an act of treachery which still casts a dark shadow.

Priscilla, Devon, and Bailey haven’t been close in years, but when the sisters are forced to come together to settle their mother’s estate, they discover a secret. In an old trunk, they happen upon ownership papers for a house on the Amalfi Coast, along with a love letter to their mother from an anonymous man, promising to meet her in Italy during the summer of her 65th birthday. Now they’re questioning everything they knew about her history. In order to get answers about the woman they thought they knew, they’ll have to go back to where it all started.

The summer after World War II, two men form an uneasy bond that inevitably leads to a mysterious accident that shatters the tranquility between them.

Set against the backdrop of the island’s increasing disillusionment with its new rulers from Savoy and a yearning for the return of the formerly detested Spanish monarchy, book two of Sicilian Avengers continues as the future of the House of Albamonte hangs in the balance and the survival of the Beati Paoli is threatened.

Andrew Gross delivers a stirring story of a Jewish family brought together in the dawn of the women's garment business and torn apart by the birth of organized crime in New York City in the 1930s. Morris, Sol, and Harry Rabishevsky grew up poor and rough in a tiny flat on the Lower East Side, until the death of their father thrust them into having to fend for themselves. Morris, the youngest, dropped out of school at 12 and apprenticed himself to a garment cutter in a clothing factory; Sol headed to accounting school; but Harry, scarred by a family tragedy, fell in with a gang of thugs as a teenager.

At 34, Nick Walsh is a broken, deeply cynical man. Since the violent deaths of his parents 13 years earlier, he has been living alone in his childhood home in the suburban Midwest, drinking, drugging, and debauching himself into oblivion. A measure of solace is provided by his newly found relationship with Monica, a mysterious woman who seems to harbor as many secrets as he does. Obsessed with understanding the circumstances surrounding his parents' deaths and deranged by his relentless sorrow, Nick begins a campaign of spying on his neighbors via hidden cameras and microphones.

Jim Parker, a honeybee expert, has retreated to a small island in Lake Michigan with his teenage daughter after a terrible family tragedy. He longs to hide from an increasingly dangerous world. In the midst of a global bee crisis, bees everywhere are dying and the food supply teeters on the brink of collapse. Pollination now relies on powerful mega-corporations known as Beelords. But this island is not the haven Jim once thought. Someone is torching his traditional beehives, people are disappearing, and an unknown threat is lurking in the woods behind his house.

New York, 2005. Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin is a fiercely principled reporter at a small news agency that produces a website read by the Chinese diaspora around the world. Danlin's explosive exposés have made him legendary among readers - and feared by Communist officials. But his newest assignment may be his undoing: investigating his ex-wife, Yan Haili, an unscrupulous novelist who has willingly become a pawn of the Chinese government in order to realize her dreams of literary stardom.

Bridge and Nicole are given a job by Eric Happ. And like most jobs that are assigned by the government, there is more than meets the eye with this one. Their assignment seems simple enough at first. They just have to take out a man in Venezuela, who’s trying to start his own criminal empire down there. But the simple assignment will quickly become more complicated as unfriendly faces recognize Bridge, which could throw the whole job into chaos.

Bridge is hired by a man employed by the CIA to find and rescue three kidnapped aid workers. After a rough start to their mission, Bridge gets the feeling that there is more to the story than he’s been told. Bridge and Nicole are given a couple of men local to the area to help facilitate the safe return of the aid workers. But can these men be trusted? Or are they loyal to the rebels that took the workers in the first place?

On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti.

From a team of leading Ukrainian reporters, 77 Days of February is the bracingly powerful and intimate story of the early days of the Russian invasion of their thriving independent nation. It brings to the world, in a way not seen before, the experiences of everyday Ukrainians whose lives have been forever torn apart by this brutal and illegal war, and celebrates their monumental strength and resilience.

Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. Bored rigid by his pedestrian life as a solicitor, Edgar decides to risk everything on trying to make it as a journalist. When he’s offered the post of foreign correspondent in Barba - a Portuguese backwater that has sprouted a terrorist movement - Edgar leaps at the chance to replace a blowhard called "Barrington Saddler" who’s disappeared. But the more Edgar learns about his posting, and his larger-than-life predecessor, the more he realizes that it’s not Barban terrorism he’s covering; it’s Barrington Saddler.

Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come.

When governments won’t help, when the police are out of leads, and when people are out of answers, there’s only one man left they can turn to. The Extractor. Luke Bridge is a former CIA agent and his client's current last hope. Whether the job is a rescue mission, finding a kidnapped victim, or returning stolen property, he’s got the skills to get the job done. He restores hope to a hopeless situation.

Modern-day Rome: Two American archaeologists suddenly die in an underground passageway in the Roman Forum leading to the buried rooms of Emperor Nero's Golden Palace. The Italian authorities conclude the deaths were caused by a devastating and highly contagious virus. Tom Stewart, an NYU forensic archaeologist who was present when the deaths occurred, becomes entangled in the race to find the supply of the virus - a race involving many powerful players desperately seeking the deadly contagion.

The world believed Daniel Burke was dead. At least, the few people in the government who knew he existed did. Once part of an elite black op team, Burke faked his death so he could avenge his brother. Now that those responsible have been brought to justice, he plans to leave the country and start a new life.

Even decades after their arrival, Corrine and Russell Calloway still feel as if they're living the dream that drew them to New York City in the first place: book parties or art openings one night and high-society events the next; jobs they care about (and in fact love); twin children whose birth was truly miraculous; a loft in TriBeCa and summers in the Hamptons. But all of this comes at a fiendish cost.

Bridge and Nicole take on a cold case, which quickly spirals into something more than they bargained for. A PI previously hired to look into the case mysteriously disappears. As Bridge and Nicole investigate, the clues lead them to the government agency they used to work for. The job takes them on several twists and turns, with Bridge and Nicole running into rogue agents, ex-spies, and a trip to Greece, where they will finally learn the truth about what is really going on.