Showing results by narrator "Michael Boatman" in Literature & Fiction

Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles. But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran - a young White man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a White woman from a Black man - he knows he shouldn't take the case.

It's 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He's 40, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or 'externalising' memory. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

Betty Jean already has her hands full when her grown daughter leaves her two young sons in her care. In between dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreams - BJ still manages to hold down a job delivering room service at a hotel. Her son Dexter is about to be paroled from prison; Quentin, the family success, can’t be bothered to lend a hand; and taking care of two lively grandsons is the last thing BJ thinks she needs. But who asked her?

Detective Alex Cross is being hunted down and his world is crashing around him. Alex Cross has devoted his life to protecting others, his only refuge from the horrors of his job is his family - and his enemies know it. He's never faced a foe like this before. One by one, everyone he loves is being taken from him. If Alex doesn't act fast, he'll have no one left. The first part of a thrilling duology by best-selling author James Patterson, followed by Hope to Die.

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

Detective Alex Cross is called into action on Christmas Eve - and he'll be lucky to see the New Year. Christmas celebrations with his family are cut short when Detective Alex Cross receives a phone call. A drug-crazed man has taken his own family hostage and their lives depend on Alex. But it's not just them. As the suburban nightmare unfolds, a greater threat arises - a terrorist attack like Washington has never seen. And Alex is caught in the middle.

Detective Easy Rawlins returns in a mystery set in 1961 Los Angeles as Easy accepts a job searching for a beautiful woman nicknamed Black Betty who works as a housekeeper in Beverly Hills.

It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin....

The phone call came on a hot July day—a day like any other for Marin County mom and freelance writer Tanya Harris. But this call—from Tanya’s agent—was anything but ordinary, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to write a major Hollywood screenplay, a dream she had put aside long ago to devote her energies to her family. This time, Tanya knows she cannot refuse, even though she’s torn about leaving her husband and their daughters.

It is the Summer of Love as Cinnamon Kiss opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It's farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled, but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch. Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time.

One might as well start with Séraphin: playlist-maker, nerd-jock hybrid, self-appointed merchant of cool, Rwandan, stifled and living in Namibia. Soon he will leave the confines of his family life for the cosmopolitan city of Cape Town, where loyal friends, hormone-saturated parties, adventurous conquests, and race controversies await. More than that, his long-awaited final year in law school promises to deliver a crucial puzzle piece of the Great Plan immigrant: a degree from a prestigious university.

We last saw Easy in 2007’s Blonde Faith, fighting for his life after his car plunges over a cliff. True to form, the tough WWII veteran survives, and soon his murderous sidekick Mouse has him back cruising the mean streets of L.A., in all their psychedelic 1967 glory, to look for a young black man, Evander "Little Green" Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator’s Blood, brewed by the conjure woman Mama Jo, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, and emotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem.

From one of the greatest storytellers of the American West comes a collection of short stories, including "Death West Bound", "Old Doc Yak", "It's Your Move", "And Proudly Die", "Survival", "Show Me the Way to Go Home", "Thicker Than Blood", "The Admiral", "Shanghai, Not Without Gestures", "The Man Who Stole Shakespeare", "The Dancing Kate", "Off the Mangrove Coast", "Glorious Glorious", "By the Ruins of El Walarieh", "Where There's Fighting", "The Cross and the Candle", "A Friend of the General", "Author's Tea", "Dead End Drift", and "Let Me Forget".

Alex Cross’s whole world is crashing down around him. He has been hunted, stalked like prey, his predator priming himself for the kill. Cross has devoted his life to protecting others. Now he’s unable to protect even those closest to him. As a police detective, he has made many enemies, but never like this. Everything he loves is being taken from him. Soon he will have nothing and no one left.

Obadiah Grudge is tall, dark, and gaunt, though he prefers the word rich. He dresses well and has a taste for the finer things, so its a good thing that the mysteries he writes consistently hit the top of the best seller lists. The critics hate him; his public loves him. He has everything he wants. Then one day he gets a call. His estranged father is dead. Obadiah has inherited his father's monster-killing business, his lunatic of a partner, and his pet Raven. It's too bad he didnt inherit his father's skill.

Just As I Am, picks up where Invisible Life left off, introducing Harris's appealing and authentic characters to a new set of joys, conflicts, and choices. In this vivid portrait of contemporary black life, with all its pressures and the complications of bisexuality, AIDS, and racism, Harris confirms a faith in the power of love - love of all kinds - to thrill and to heal.

The phone call came on a hot July day, a day like any other for Marin County mom and freelance writer Tanya Harris. But this call from Tanya's agent was anything but ordinary, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to write a major Hollywood screenplay, a dream she had put aside long ago to devote her energies to her family. This time, Tanya knows she cannot refuse, even though she's torn about leaving her husband and daughters.

Abide with Me moves between the worlds of New York City, where Nicole has recently settled in order to pursue her dream of returning to the Broadway stage, and Seattle, where a late-night phone call from a US senator is about to change Raymond's life dramatically. Relationships and ambitions are tested as author E. Lynn Harris deftly guides us toward this entertaining novel's conclusion.

Invisible Life is the story of a young man's coming of age. Law school, girlfriends, and career choices were all part of Raymond Tyler's life, but there were other, more terrifying issues for him to confront. Being black was tough enough, but Raymond was becoming more and more conscious of sexual feelings that he knew weren't "right". He was completely committed to Sela, his longtime girlfriend, but his attraction to Kelvin, whom he had met during his last year in law school, had become more than just a friendship.