Showing results by narrator "Jeff Harding" in All Categories

Tom Valle, a small town Californian journalist, is reporting on a car crash when he senses that something about the incident is not quite right - this is no ordinary accident. For starters, the autopsy reveals that the victim has been castrated. And although his driving licence pictures him as a 42-year-old white man, his charred bones are those of a black man. Valle's journalistic zeal kicks in, and he is unable to leave the case alone.

The story is set in Padua and follows botanist Giacomo Rappaccini’s garden of poisonous plants. A student from the university of Padua falls for a maiden in the luscious garden, but he soon learns some troubling information about his beloved’s true nature.

In Our Time is an exploration of alienation, loss and war that launched Ernest Hemingway into the American public consciousness and began his career as one of American’s foremost writers.

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you this final instalment from their über-guide to exploring the fourth dimension. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

South takes place in a USA ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South - and still they keep coming. Every wind brings a new and terrifying way to die. The few survivors live in constant fear, hiding from the wind - and from each other. In the harsh Southern expanse, brothers Garrett and Dyce Jackson are on the run from brutal law enforcers. They meet Vida, a lone traveler on a secret quest.

Readers of Dan Brown's extraordinary bestseller The Da Vinci Code are fascinated by the questions raised in the novel. Was Jesus actually married to Mary Magdalene? Was she one of his disciples and did she write her own gospel? Did they have a child together?

True Detectives follows Moe Reed and Aaron Fox on the twisted trail of a missing girl, a dark, baffling whodunit that forces the brothers to put aside their mutual animus - and to confront the unresolved family mystery that turned them into enemies. PIs can do things, legally, that cops can't. And cops have access to resources denied their private counterparts.

Into a smoky chaos of sprawling humanity comes Skelly, a burned-out American war correspondent, now in harness again, thanks to a messy divorce and too many children. Post 9/11, he’s back in the game, in yet another new and extremely hazardous location, dropped from the skies after scarcely as much preparation as one might make for a weekend at the beach. Soon Skelly and his fixer, Najeeb, are driving dusty roads north, in the wake of Mahmood Abdul Khan – ex-Mujahadeen, ex-Taliban, currently good friend of the Allied forces.

There is no turning back.... Detective John Morrigan arrives at what appears to be a routine homicide in a botched armed robbery. However, as a key witness to the murder is herself violently killed less than 24 hours later, Morrigan discovers that someone very dangerous is responsible. As the Detective follows the trail, it leads him into a tangled web of duplicity stretching from the heart of his police department all the way to the upper echelons of political power.

A deadly captain is the subject if this short story. Young sailor Roberts recalls his experience of Captain Morbond, a cruel, heartless man who mysteriously is followed by small white mice said to carry the souls of dead men.

The pretty gift-wrapped box floating in a toy dinghy looks innocent enough, but it holds a bloody secret: a human heart. Nothing is more important to Detective Sam Becket than being able to keep his family safe. But when that gruesome package is found outside their home, they fear it can mean only one thing: that Cal the Hater is back. When a second grisly discovery is made in a crowded resort pool, the great manhunt is back on.

A private detective is hired by a mysterious woman to find a man. The quarry? An obscure author of pulp fiction novels featuring one Osama Bin Laden: vigilante. Our detective pursues his quarry from the backwaters of Asia to the Capitals of Europe, the New World and into a realm of shadows. Here he finds the refugees, ghostly entities haunting reality. Where do they come from? And what do they want?

This sharp and engaging collection of essays by leading governmental scholar Cass R. Sunstein examines shifting understandings of what's normal and how those shifts account for the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, the rise of Adolf Hitler, the rise of gun rights, the response to COVID-19, and changing understandings of liberty. Prevailing norms include the principle of equal dignity, the idea of not treating the press as an enemy of the people, and the social unacceptability of open expressions of racial discrimination.

The USA has been ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South. While the South has been devastated by disease, the North has emerged victorious but terrified of reprisals. Both territories remain at the mercy of the vicious Northern dictator, Renard. Two survivors, Dyce and Vida, journeyed deep into the Southern terrains in search of a cure for Renard's chemical warfare. Now they find themselves scouring the Northern territories on a new and far deadlier pursuit.

Writer Carl Borden mysteriously falls violently ill one evening whilst out walking his dog, and then again less than two weeks later, whilst asleep in bed. His friend and physician, Doctor Thomas Wingate, suspects foul play, but it will take a lot to convince Borden he could be in danger in his own home.

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Evil Roots. Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, this short story by Conan Doyle preceded the famous detective by almost a decade. After an altercation, a disgruntled American storms off into the night, only to disappear mysteriously. Could a giant flytrap really be capable of engulfing an adult victim?

"Who is the man with the roses in his hand?" thinks Anna. "I want to meet him." ’’Who is the girl with the guitar?’ thinks Will. "I like her. I want to meet her." But they do not meet. "There are lots of men!" says Anna’s friend Vicki, but Anna cannot forget Will. And then, one rainy day....

The keeper’s rats are kept in a comfortable cage until they’ve served their purpose. The keeper feels they’re as individual as humans; they like to eat, play, fight and procreate. And some like to kill…. Life is good in the Becket household. Sam is planning a surprise for Grace’s birthday, Cathy’s back from California and Grace is seeing patients again. Even Sam’s partner, Martinez, is in love. And then the killings begin. A newly-wed couple is found horribly slain in Miami Beach, their nude bodies bizarrely displayed.

Sam never knew his parents. In fact, he’s never met another human - or seen a sunrise, smelled a flower or eaten a regular meal. All of that is about to change. It’s night in the desert, but he doesn’t feel the cold. There is a building ahead. Other people will be inside. His heart skips a beat as he takes a step forward, the rocks crunching under his bare feet. He has dreamed of this moment for as long as he can remember. But that which can be found can just as easily be lost again. It would have been better had Sam’s arrival gone unnoticed.

Having escaped the Island - a wasteland that housed those no longer able to contribute to society - ageing 'Big Guy' Clancy thought his fight was over. But they have returned to the mainland to find that it is not the haven they anticipated. With the punishment satellites that kept them on the Island - and the city under control - gone, hell has been unleashed.