Showing results by narrator "Kerry Shale" in All Categories

Laura Patterson is an American exchange student in Rome who, fed up with being inexpertly groped by her young Italian beaus, decides there's only one sure-fire way to find a sensual man: date a chef. Then she meets Tomasso, who's handsome, young, and cooks in the exclusive Templi restaurant. Perfect. Except, unbeknownst to Laura, Tomasso is in fact only a waiter at Templi; it's his shy friend Bruno who is the chef.

A teenage computer prodigy is mortally strangled in Mumbai. A far-right extremist is killed in a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest. A wealthy businessman is murdered in Thailand. A pimp in Brooklyn is found stabbed to death and mysteriously covered by a brown shroud. What connects the victims is an ancient prophecy that leads to the end of the world, and it's up to Will Monroe, a fledgling reporter at the New York Times, to stop it.

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Crack explains why, in a de-industrializing America in which market forces ruled and entrepreneurial risk-taking was celebrated, the crack industry was a lucrative enterprise for the "Horatio Alger boys" of their place and time. These young, predominately African American entrepreneurs were profit-sharing partners in a deviant, criminal form of economic globalization. Hip Hop artists often celebrated their exploits but overwhelmingly, Americans - across racial lines - did not. Crack takes a hard look at the dark side of late 20th-century capitalism.

In 1519, Hernando Cortés arrived in Mexico to investigate stories of a wealthy empire. What he encountered was beyond his wildest dreams; an advanced civilization with complex artistic, political, and religious systems (involving extensive human sacrifice) and replete with gold. This was the Aztec empire, headed by the aloof emperor, Montezuma.

Two couples, two marriages; both seemingly perfect, both falling apart. Beneath the surface gentility of the American John Dowell with his wife Florence and the landed grace of Edward and Leonora lie fictions and deceit. There are secret desires, hidden power-games, suicides and madness. Everyone is hiding something; even the narrator can’t be trusted. Brilliantly inventive, tragic and ironic, The Good Soldier is one of the great novels of the 20th century.

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Private spies are influencing our elections, shaping the future of Hollywood, effecting government policies and the fortunes of companies. More deviously, they are also peering into our personal lives as never before, using off-the shelf technology to listen to our phone calls, monitor our emails and decide what we see on social media. Spooked takes us on a journey into a secret billion-dollar industry in which information is currency and loyalties are for sale.

When he was a prosecuting attorney, Penn Cage sent hardened killers to death row. But it is as mayor of his hometown, Natchez, Mississippi, that Penn will face his most dangerous threat. Urged by old friends to try to restore the town to its former glory, Penn has ridden into office on a tide of support for change. But in its quest for new jobs and fresh money, Natchez has turned to casino gambling.

Focussing on three of the best-known Republican presidents of the 20th century, Jonathan Myerson’s riveting drama series looks at how their triumphs and disasters drove the party's electoral fortunes. Closely based on accounts by those who were there, this political trilogy reimagines the pivotal moments that changed history, and the part played by these famous and controversial leaders.

A fight in an alley behind a bar: a visiting European is knifed by local thug Ramon Espejo, and all hell breaks loose. The dead man was a diplomat on an important mission to São Paulo, and next day Ramon is on the run heading north in his van toward land that no one has ever explored, or even thought of exploring, land so far only glimpsed from orbit during the first colony surveys.

Winner of the British Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007.

Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse.

Jack London was the epitome of the hard-drinking, hard-living novelist. His extraordinary career included spells as an oyster pirate, sailor, hobo, prospector in the Klondike Gold Rush, reporter in the Russo-Japanese war and round-the-world yachtsman. A chronic alcoholic, he died aged just 40, having written some of the best-loved adventure stories in American literature. Included here are three of his most famous works, together with a thrilling original drama about the man himself and a fascinating documentary exploring his turbulent life.

All Alex Yow wants is to become a photojournalist and break her first story. All Brandon Yow wants is for his sister to keep out of trouble and come home. But that's not going to happen, because Alex has taken a picture of a statue. A statue that can move. A statue that makes people disappear. A statue that is hunting them down. In upstate New York, the Doctor is chasing weird energies that should not exist. Teaming up with Alex and Brandon, he discovers a powerful force enslaved to another's will.

This enthralling true story of maritime tragedy and visionary science begins with a disaster to rival the sinking of the Titanic.In September 1857, the S.S. Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying passengers returning from the gold fields of California, went down during a hurricane off the Carolina coast. More than 400 men--and 21 tons of gold--were lost. In the 1980s, a maverick engineer named Tommy Thompson set out to find the wreck and salvage its treasure from the ocean floor.

Solitude is a rapidly vanishing experience. Our society now embraces sharing like never before: time alone is being forced out of our lives by the constant pings of smartphones and prods of social media. But what if being alone still has something to offer us - something we have forgotten but that we still desperately need? In Solitude, award-winning author Michael Harris examines why being alone matters now more than ever before.

Rhyme's cousin has been arrested for murder. The evidence clearly shows he did it, but Rhyme agrees to check things out. It turns out that the cousin, along with other people, has been wrongly convicted, because the true killer knows every single detail about the lives of the victims he kills and the men he sets up to take the fall for those crimes.

Bob Dylan is a singular figure defined by a lifetime of creative invention that has helped transform music, literature, pop culture, and even politics. This book provides a lively, accessible look at his art and music as seen by leading rock and pop critics and music scholars. The chapters are carefully integrated so that listeners can take quick dives into specific topics ranging from the Blues to religious faith, civil rights, and American literature.

In his compelling new work of fiction, Aravind Adiga has imagined the small Indian city of Kittur, an everytown nestling on the coast south of Goa and north of Calicut. Through the myriad and distinctive voices of its in habitants, an entire Indian world comes vividly and unforgettably to life. Adiga has produced a microcosm of Indian life in the 80s, the years between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv.

When a routine investigation comes to a violent and tragic end, Detective Joe Lucchesi takes leave from the NYPD and moves with his wife and son to a quiet village on the south east coast of Ireland. They're happy, they're safe...and they're about to enter a nightmare more terrifying than the one they left behind.