Outdoor Mysteries

The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does.

Fantastic stories have swirled around the automobile since the first car appeared over 100 years ago. History’s Greatest Automotive Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed compiles a juicy selection covering subjects from racing to automakers, crime to pop culture, and historical to modern day. Did you know that after James Dean’s death behind the wheel of his Porsche 550 Spyder, parts of the car were sold off, and said parts then cursed their new owners? Or did they?

Sixteen of America's favorite author-anglers spin tales of mystery and fishing in this collection. From the tragic to the comic with many stops in between, these stories reflect the authors' passions for both making stories and catching fish. Michael Connelly, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, Don Winslow, Melodie Johnson Howe, Victoria Houston, and others all share a mysterious affection for things piscatorial when not busy writing best-selling books.

Great Horse Racing Mysteries digs beneath the surface of some of the sport's most intriguing cases.

Few will hire competitive rider, Viola Parker, since the famous jumper, Wastrel, crashed to his death with her aboard. Not only that, her attitude just landed her out of work...again. She can barely afford her whipped-cream-in-a-can addiction. Now, before she's 30, she must keep a job for one year and receive a glowing letter of recommendation to get a surprise trust fund set up by her absentee parents. A trust fund that could represent freedom and independence - or might be worth nothing.

War Fever explores this delirious moment in American history through the stories of three men: Karl Muck, the German conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, accused of being an enemy spy; Charles Whittlesey, a Harvard law graduate who became an unlikely hero in Europe; and the most famous baseball player of all time, Babe Ruth, poised to revolutionize the game he loved. Together, they offer a gripping narrative of America at war and American culture in upheaval.

Lucas and his friends are still reveling in their city-wide middle school basketball championship when the trophy they won goes missing. Foul play is afoot, and it’s going to take all their basketball and detective skills to find it.

When a guest turns up dead at the newly opened Pinnacles Grand Hotel, ISB agent Felicity Harland finds herself summoned to a peculiar scene. A gentle breeze blows in from the balcony window, belying the violence of a man stabbed to death in his hotel room. It’s clear to Harland that this murder was personal, especially when the victim’s wife admits that she wanted him dead. But Harland isn’t so sure that this was a domestic dispute gone bad.

Fascinated by the stunning Appalachian Trail landscapes? Craving a challenging adventure? Longing to disconnect from life's stress? If you answered "Yes," discover one of America's most beautiful, varied, and culturally significant landscapes.

Abby and Tommy are on another mystery-solving adventure in their small beach town. Today they are on the case to help Coach Hill, the Pismo High School basketball coach. They need to find the team uniforms before the back-to-school basketball jam.... Can they solve the case? Join in and see if you can solve the case with these two great mystery-solvers. The audiobook promotes health, teamwork, and fun for kids of all ages.

Special Agent Poppy McVie finally gets a chance to shine when she’s put in charge of an undercover operation. The whole team. What’s left of it. After their lovers’ quarrel in Operation Dolphin Spirit, her partner Dalton has disappeared. So she can’t rely on him. Poppy’s sent to Idaho to investigate claims that wolves are killing livestock in shocking numbers. But are the wolves really the culprits? Poppy can’t believe it’s true. Too much money is at stake.

All over the world, people love to watch the athletes of the Olympics compete. But just why are there Olympic Games? Why are they so important? The truth is, the modern Olympics are a return to a mysterious, ancient festival. The ancient Olympics were more than just fun and games; they helped shape Greek culture and its contributions to us.

The evolution of basketball, and much of the social and cultural change in America, can be traced through one powerful act on the court: the slam dunk. The dunk's history is the story of a sport and a country changed by the most dominant act in basketball, and it makes Magic in the Air a rollicking and insightful piece of narrative history and a surefire classic of sports literature.

Lake Monsters: Strange Encounters offers bone-chilling tales of human survival and death with mysterious creatures of the deep, murky freshwater of North America. These are true, frightening encounters with unimaginable and elusive freshwater cryptids. From the Great Lakes to pristine backyard swimming pools, the next time you stare into the depths, you’ll remember the fantastic and horrifying cryptids that lurk below the surface. Dive in if you dare.

In 1960, an upstart Pittsburgh Pirates team beat the highly favored New York Yankees in the World Series. Given the power of a Yankee roster that included Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Yogi Berra, that improbably victory did more than give long-suffering Pirates fans something to cheer about; it put Pittsburgh on the map. Though John Moody was only six years old during that magical baseball season, he was a devoted fan of the Pittsburgh team. The star pitcher for the Pirates and John's first hero was Vernon Law - an unsophisticated Idaho country boy, widely known as The Deacon, a friendly nickname derived from his strict Mormon upbringing.

New York Stars, the rookie quarterback figures the world is his oyster. Reality sets in after meeting his football "family" -- the all-too benevolent owner, Papa Goldman; his daughter, the Stars' Director of Communications, Dominique, who has a certain fondness for quarterbacks; a frustrated head coach; a team full of malcontents and racial tensions; and a very shady Director of Player Personnel.

During March of each year, 70 million people fill out the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament bracket, either in national contests or office pools. The goal is to predict all the winners for a tournament of 68 teams. The odds against perfection are astronomical. A small group of social media marketers, led by mathematician Sinclair Dane, see this annual quest as an under-appreciated opportunity to make money on sports betting. For a $2 entry fee, they offer one billion dollars for anyone who can predict the winners of all the games.

It’s 1984, and David is off the couch once more and providing support to the team-building efforts of a publishing start-up at the LA Dodgers Adult Fantasy Camp in Florida. As David seeks the elusive home run that will elevate his love life from the minors, team rivalries simmer, and he is drawn into a web of lies, suspicion, and drug smuggling. Teambuilding becomes less of a goal and more of a necessity as members start to show up dead.

Matt Brooks knows the forests and fields of the Midwestern farms better than most young people his age and following the early loss of his father has honed his skills as a hunter and outdoorsman to a razor's edge. He will need all these skills when long-established neighbor trouble escalates during the quest for a legendary trophy buck, and the deterioration of his arch-nemesis reaches a pinnacle of no return. Distracted by this mounting trouble, a new girl in town, and the approaching hunting season, Matt is cast down a path which will change his life forever.

It's impossible but it's on-screen. He's captured - on camera - the scene of his own death. One weekday to the next, Trevor quietly fulfills his roles as loving husband and father-to-be, trusted best friend, and dependable employee. He's chosen normality, routine, simplicity, even predictability: everything he never had as a child. And he prefers it that way. And then comes Saturday. The weekends are Trevor's alone. On the weekends, Trevor is king.