Showing results by narrator "Ben Jaeger-Thomas" in All Categories

C. J. Box, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the hugely popular Joe Pickett series, selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual “treat for crime-fiction fans” (Library Journal).

The United Nations of Earth sent out the Forerunner ships to explore and colonize the four most promising star systems within 50 light-years of Earth. Forerunner One left Earth under the command of Captain Clayton Cross, heading for Trappist-1. After a ninety year journey to reach it, the crew encountered not only a habitable world, but alien life already inhabiting it, and dark secrets lurking beneath the surface. The revelation of who these aliens are and what they want proves more terrifying than promising, and Captain Cross is forced to make tough decisions that will affect not only his crew, but the fate of the entire human race.

With a fragile peace established in the Enclave between humans and Chimeras, both species must learn to put aside their differences to ensure their continued survival. But racial tensions are simmering just beneath the surface, ready to explode. Meanwhile, Clayton and Samara’s daughter, Dora, might be the answer that everyone is looking for: her immunity to both strains of the Chimeran virus could soon lead to a cure, making it possible to establish new settlements beyond the Enclave.

Captain Clayton Cross and his crew encountered the Kyra, an advanced race of avian carnivores. They fled this first encounter, but the Kyra beat them back to Earth by almost a century. Earth lost the war in just a few weeks. Our cities burned, and billions died. After we surrendered, the Kyra helped us to rebuild, but on their terms, confining us to city centers and building high walls to keep us in.

Bill Steele is in the trenches, trying to survive in the competitive world of luxury vacation resorts on the island of Kauai. Then a dark shadow falls over the island. It’s not a lunar eclipse, because Bill can clearly see the crescent moon shimmering on the water. This is something else. Moments later, the meteors begin to fall. One of them lands in the water just beyond the resort. On the news, the anchorman is fleeing from his hillside vantage point with his cameraman in hot pursuit. Their muffled screams are the last thing anyone hears before the signal is lost....

Clayton Cross has been reunited with his family, and he’s joined forces with the remnants of Phoenix, a human resistance group from the Wastes outside of New Houston. But following a traitorous double-cross by their Chrona ally, Specter, most of the world’s remaining population has turned into the failed human-alien hybrids known as Dregs. The world is no longer divided into safe, civilized cities run by the Kyra, and even they have abandoned Earth, declaring it a quarantine zone to contain a deadly new version of their virus, engineered by the Chrona.

In the long history of American demagogues from Huey Long to Donald Trump, never has one man caused so much damage in such a short time as Senator Joseph McCarthy. We still use "McCarthyism" to stand for outrageous charges of guilt by association, a weapon of polarizing slander. From 1950 to 1954, McCarthy destroyed many careers and even entire lives, whipping the nation into a frenzy of paranoia, accusation, loyalty oaths, and terror. When the public finally turned on him, he came crashing down, dying of alcoholism in 1957.

Criminal attorney Liam Price can't believe his luck. He scored a deal for a suite aboard the Starlit Dream to the exotic world of Aquaria. He surprises his wife, Aria, with the trip for her 40th birthday, and the Price family gets ready for the trip of a lifetime. Soon after the voyage starts, they learn that they’ve somehow jumped to the wrong star system. Liam consults the ship’s computer to determine their location, but he can't access the navigational data. The captain claims that there’s nothing to worry about. Then the ship plunges into darkness....

When James Quinn and Vernor Stanton reunite at the Centennial Club, the scene of many a carefree childhood summer, Stanton marks the occasion by shooting his friend in the heart. The good news is that the bullet is made of wax. The bad news is that the Mephistophelian Stanton wants Quinn to help him wreak havoc upon this genteel enclave of weekend sportsmen: "May I predict that this is not going to be the usual boring, phlegmatic summer?"

He invented a machine to take people to the future. Then he was accused of murder, but he can't remember killing anyone. Billionaire genius Byron Gaines is accused of murdering his wife and her lover, but he swears he didn't do it. This couldn't have come at a worse moment: He is so close to a breakthrough in his research. He's about to invent a device that will change the world forever. The irony is, if only he had a little more time, he'd be able to make his legal problems disappear - along with himself.

Chester Pomeroy is a onetime rock star turned casualty of illicit substances. In the hands of Thomas McGuane, Chester's story is a high-wire act of extravagant emotion and steel-nerved prose. As he haunts Key West, pestering family, threatening a potential in-law with a .38, and attempting to crucify himself on his ex's door out of sheer lovesickness, Chester emerges as the pure archetype of the McGuane hero.