Showing results by narrator "Ari Fliakos" in All Categories

Meet Samuel: stalled writer, bored teacher at a local college, obsessive player of online video games. He hasn't seen his mother, Faye, in decades, not since she abandoned her family when he was a boy. Now she has suddenly reappeared, having committed an absurd politically motivated crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the Internet, and inflames a divided America. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high school sweetheart.

The Betrothed is a cornerstone of Italian culture, language, and literature. Published in its final form in 1842, The Betrothed has inspired generations of Italian readers and writers. Giuseppe Verdi composed his majestic Requiem Mass in honor of Manzoni. Italo Calvino called the novel “a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy” while Umberto Eco praised its author as a “most subtle critic and analyst of languages.”

Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case - the hunt for a serial killer - went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he's a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him. First, he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he's never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn't want a new boss.

Emery Blackwood's life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She'd once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition, ruled by the seasons and ancient superstitions.

A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life - mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore.The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone - and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

Mattie Engel is one of the rising stars at Private Berlin, and believes she’s seen the worst of people in her previous life with the Berlin police force. That is until Chris, her colleague - and until recently, her fiancé - is found dead, brutally murdered in an old slaughterhouse outside the city. The slaughterhouse is filled with bodies. But just as Private begin their investigations, the building explodes, wiping out all evidence of the crimes, and nearly killing Mattie and her team.

Brought to life by Academy Award®-winning actor F. Murray Abraham and an ensemble cast of narrators, and featuring original music by Michael Bacon, this collection contains Hans Christian Andersen’s most beloved fairy tales, as well as a selection of lesser-known favorites. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who collected and retold folklore and fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen adopted the most ancient literary forms and distilled them into a genre that was uniquely his own. His fairy tales are remarkable for their sense of fantasy, power of description, and vivid imagination.

Shapeshifting visitors, unsolved murders in the forest, black metal bands and an online bank of thousands of people’s dreams – the star is back, and the limitless scale and ambition of Karl Ove’s new universe is clear. This is life, death, the human condition, and the opportunity to bring listeners in on the real-time creation of an epic and utterly immersive world.

Weeks before NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is to marry his long-time love, Mary Catherine, an assassin announces their presence in the city with a string of murders. All of the victims are young women. And each has been killed in a manner as precise as it was gruesome. Tasked with working alongside the FBI, Bennett uncovers multiple cold-case homicides across the country that fit the same distinctive pattern. Bennett promises Mary Catherine that the case won't affect their upcoming wedding. But, as he struggles to connect the killings, Bennett may be walking into a deadly trap.

A vicious hit, a vengeful enemy, a drug-addled Colombian club owner, and a sex-crazed Italian family - the ever-powerful Lucky Santangelo has to deal with them all. Meanwhile Max - her teenage daughter - is becoming the "it" girl in Europe's modeling world. And her Kennedyesque son, Bobby, is being set up for a murder he didn't commit. But Lucky can deal. Always strong and unpredictable, with her husband, Lennie, by her side, she lives up to the family motto - "Never f--k with a Santangelo."

In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman's family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor's life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years. The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts.

Vix Leonard is twelve when she meets dazzling, reckless Caitlin Somers. Invited to spend holidays on Martha's Vineyard with Caitlin and her eccentric, mysterious family, Vix is welcomed into a life totally unlike her own. As days of bold adventure give way to nights of shy discovery, she and Caitlin come together in the complications of growing up; the refuge of belonging; the pact to Never Be Ordinary . . . Until one devastating summer when a local boy changes everything.

At 32, Russell Green has it all: a loving family, a successful career and a beautiful house. But underneath his seemingly perfect life, cracks are beginning to appear...and no one is more surprised than Russ when the life he took for granted is turned upside down.

Night Watch usually acts as a setup crew for the day shift, but when Billy is called to a 4:00 a.m. fatal slashing of a man in Penn Station, his investigation of the crime moves beyond the usual handoff. And when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy - a brutal case with connections to the former members of the Wild Geese - the bad old days are back in Billy's life with a vengeance, tearing apart enduring friendships forged in the urban trenches and even threatening the safety of his family.

The Flame is a stunning collection of Leonard Cohen's last poems, selected and ordered by the author in the final months of his life. Featuring lyrics, prose pieces and illustrations, the book also contains an extensive selection from Cohen's notebooks, which he kept in poetic form throughout his life, and offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist and thinker.

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.

Six years ago, Henry and Celia were lovers and colleagues, working for the CIA station in Vienna, until terrorists hijacked a plane at the airport. A rescue attempt, staged from the inside, went terribly wrong. Everyone on board was killed. That night has continued to haunt all of those involved; for Henry and Celia, it brought to an end their relationship. Celia decided she'd had enough; she left the agency and is now living an ordinary life in California. Henry is still a CIA analyst and has travelled to the US to see her one more time.

Emma is the one that got away. The only survivor of a serial killer known in the tabloids as “The Hairdresser”, because of the trophies he takes from his victims. The police aren't convinced. Nor is her husband. She never actually saw her tormentor properly, but now she recognizes him in every man she sees. Haunted by the horrifying incident and unwanted notoriety, Emma gives up her job as a psychiatrist and retreats from the outside world to recuperate at home, where it’s quiet. Where she can be anonymous and safe. Where no one can hurt her.

Aleksi Ivanovich Smirnov, an orphan and a thief, has been living by his wits and surviving below the ever-watchful eye of the Soviet system until his luck finally runs out. In 1936, at the age of 16, Aleksi is caught by the NKVD and transported to Moscow. There, in the notorious headquarters of the secret police, he is given a choice: be trained and inserted as a spy into Nazi Germany under the identity of his best friend, the long lost nephew of a high-ranking Nazi official, or disappear forever in the basement of the Lubyanka. For Aleksi it's no choice at all.

Coco Wells hasn’t seen another living person since she was a teenager. All of Manhattan is reliving the same few seconds, minutes, or hours on a loop…and they have been for years. Everything looks normal from a distance, but up close, it’s a nightmare.