Showing results by narrator "JIm Meskimen" in All Categories

For a fee so big he can't turn it down, Simeon Grist is hired to watchdog the kind of guy he'd usually prefer to throw through the nearest window. Toby Vane is the golden boy of prime-time television, whose gee-whiz smile and chiseled features mask a dark secret that would take the shine off for his millions of adoring female fans: every now and then he beats up a woman, and almost any woman will do.

If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy.

The private detective business starts out badly for former Phoenix deputy David Mapstone, who has teamed up with his old friend and boss, Sheriff Mike Peralta. Their first client is gunned down just after hiring them. The case involved the suspicious death of a young Arizona woman who fell from a condo tower in San Diego. The police call Grace Hunter’s death a suicide, but the client doesn’t buy it. He’s her brother - or is he? After his murder, police find multiple driver’s licenses, and his real identity is a mystery.

Zacharia, a Civil War general, discovers a secret about the Gods. With Jacob, his aide-de-camp, he sets out to alter the lives of Gods and men in this offbeat tale of satire and humor.

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

Following the worst terrorist attacks in American history on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush pledged to bring those responsible to justice, especially the mastermind, Osama bin Laden. After failing to capture Bin Laden in Afghanistan, George W. Bush shifted his attention and that of his country to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, neither of which had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks (as history has proven).

On December 10, 1938, Atlanta burned again. In the back lot at David O. Selznick's studio, sets from a dozen old pictures were pushed together and set ablaze to provide a backdrop for the climax of what Selznick promised to be the movie of the century: Gone with the Wind. Toby Peters, then just a studio security guard, was on hand to help keep the Confederate extras in line. When the fire was over, he found one of them dead, impaled on his own sword.

The story is based on true events in the life of Stanley William Miller. It inspires the heart on how a young man’s devotion to his family pushes him beyond impossible odds and testifies to the perseverance of the human spirit. A murder mystery. An infamous scandal. A beautiful love story.

Beep! Beep! Squish can't get enough of his awesome new video game Mitosis! (Mitosis is what happens when cells divide. Who says video games can't be educational?) In fact, he may even be obsessed! He plays at home...at school...even in his sleep! Are video games taking over Squish's life?! And can Squish's favorite comic book hero, Super Amoeba, stop the Creeping Black Mold that's taking over Small Pond?

Uh-oh! Squish’s friend Pod just hasn’t been himself lately. One minute he’s happy-dancing; the next he’s sobbing in his soup. What’s going on? (Hint: “mitosis” is the process that splits single-celled organisms. That’s right, splits.) It is truly Pod vs. Pod - and may the best Pod, umm, win?

In The Drudge Revolution, investigative journalist and author of Newtown: An American Tragedy Matthew Lysiak pulls back the curtain on the world’s most powerful journalist, for the first time telling the inside story of how one man’s visionary belief in the potential of the internet, coupled with the post-Fairness Doctrine growth of conservative talk radio and the rise of cable news and social media, created the perfect storm that seized the narrative from the mainstream media and ushered in the presidency of Donald Trump.

A memoir of a composer’s life in the Alaskan wilderness and a meditation on making art in a landscape acutely threatened by climate change. In the summer of 1975, the composer John Luther Adams, then a 22-year-old graduate of CalArts, boarded a flight to Alaska. So began a journey into the mountains and forests of the Far North - and across distinctive mental and aural terrain - that would last for the next 40 years.

Winchester Remington Smith is a crack shot. Problem is, surrounded by roller coasters and merry-go-rounds, his talent is going to waste, knocking down ducks in a carnival shooting gallery. Win wants some real action, and he’s running off to join the US Marines to fight a guerilla insurgency south of the border. In the jungles of Central America, Win takes a different kind of roller-coaster ride. Quick and quiet, he’s now a runner. It’s a vital role, but he feels like a messenger boy, unable to put his rifle to good use.

Since the start of World War II, Cary Grant has been working undercover in Hollywood as a spy for the British crown. When a ring of Nazi sympathizers gets wise, they start blackmailing the debonair leading man. Now Grant has hired Toby Peters to handle the payoff. But when the blackmailer is killed, the rumpled detective and the suave movie star are thrust into a complex plot of murder, money, and Nazi spies, leading to a literal cliff-hanger....

Under names like Otis J. Raisincluster, Quigley E. Sneersight, and Cormorant Beecham III, W. C. Fields squirreled away nearly a million dollars in banks across the country during his vaudeville days - before he became one of the silver screen's most recognizable funnymen. But it's no laughing matter when a burglar has the audacity to rob him blind, stealing his bankbooks and cleaning out his accounts. Steaming, the comedian hires Hollywood private investigator Toby Peters to track down the missing dough and protect what remains of his nest egg.

Luna Martin, the moll of a well-known Los Angeles gangster nicknamed "Fingers" (because he likes to cut them off), has demanded dance lessons from Hollywood's finest hoofer - and whatever Luna wants, Luna gets. To sidestep the flirtations of the lead-footed lady, Astaire hires private investigator Toby Peters to pose as a dance instructor and take over the lessons. But when someone cuts in and cuts Luna's throat, the grieving gangster makes Peters an offer he can't refuse: Find the killer - or go from having two left feet to one foot in the grave.

Working in Hollywood, Private Eye Toby Peters has met a lot of phonies. But his newest case concerns a four-legged faker who threatens the fate of the free world. A few classy dames have crossed the detective's doorstep, but none can touch the hem of the dress of the first lady herself, Eleanor Roosevelt, who's come to him on a matter of top-secret national security.

In February 1942, Californians may be living in fear of a Japanese attack, but the show must go on. The circus is in town - unfortunately so is a killer saboteur who's targeting the star attractions. Private detective Toby Peters is no stranger to going undercover, but this is the first time his disguise will include a red nose.

Joanna Scott, the critically acclaimed author of 10 novels and two collections, turns her “incandescent imagination” (Publishers Weekly) back to the craft of the short story, with breathtaking results. Ranging across history from the distant past to the future, Scott tours the many forms our stories can take, from cave wall paintings to radio banter to digitized archives, and the far-reaching consequences of our communications.

Uh-oh! A deadly disease is spreading through Small Pond! People are dropping like flies! And yikes - it looks like Squish is patient number one. Will this epic epidemic be the end of everyone’s favorite amoeba? (And if it is, who will he leave his comic collection to?) Find out the answers in the seventh hilarious Squish adapted-for-audio novel: Deadly Disease of Doom!