Showing results by narrator "Ari Fliakos" in All Categories

Emery Blackwood's life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She'd once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition, ruled by the seasons and ancient superstitions.

In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman's family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor's life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years. The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts.

A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life - mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore.The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone - and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

McKinsey earns billions advising almost every major corporation as well as countless governments, including Britain's, the USA's and China's. It boasts of its ability to maximise efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and network of alumni go on to top jobs in the world's most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret—until now. In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality.

Weeks before NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is to marry his long-time love, Mary Catherine, an assassin announces their presence in the city with a string of murders. All of the victims are young women. And each has been killed in a manner as precise as it was gruesome. Tasked with working alongside the FBI, Bennett uncovers multiple cold-case homicides across the country that fit the same distinctive pattern. Bennett promises Mary Catherine that the case won't affect their upcoming wedding. But, as he struggles to connect the killings, Bennett may be walking into a deadly trap.

Emma is the one that got away. The only survivor of a serial killer known in the tabloids as “The Hairdresser”, because of the trophies he takes from his victims. The police aren't convinced. Nor is her husband. She never actually saw her tormentor properly, but now she recognizes him in every man she sees. Haunted by the horrifying incident and unwanted notoriety, Emma gives up her job as a psychiatrist and retreats from the outside world to recuperate at home, where it’s quiet. Where she can be anonymous and safe. Where no one can hurt her.

Coco Wells hasn’t seen another living person since she was a teenager. All of Manhattan is reliving the same few seconds, minutes, or hours on a loop…and they have been for years. Everything looks normal from a distance, but up close, it’s a nightmare.

It is an obsession that has haunted Nick Malick for seven years - to avenge the murder of his young son. In his gut Malick knows who did it. But the psychopath is in prison for another crime, scheduled to be released in a year. All Malick has to do is wait...and survive.

Aleksi Ivanovich Smirnov, an orphan and a thief, has been living by his wits and surviving below the ever-watchful eye of the Soviet system until his luck finally runs out. In 1936, at the age of 16, Aleksi is caught by the NKVD and transported to Moscow. There, in the notorious headquarters of the secret police, he is given a choice: be trained and inserted as a spy into Nazi Germany under the identity of his best friend, the long lost nephew of a high-ranking Nazi official, or disappear forever in the basement of the Lubyanka. For Aleksi it's no choice at all.

Con man Milan Berg has a photographic memory. But he’s hiding a secret: He can’t read. Unable to interpret the world around him, Milan finds increasingly crafty ways to navigate it. That is, until he comes across a car in traffic with a girl in the back seat. She desperately holds a written note up to the window, but what does it say? Fearing the girl is in mortal danger, Milan determines to search for her. As he follows a series of clues, each darker and scarier than the next, he’s thrust into a nightmarish odyssey with a deepening, disturbing progression: The clues are tied to his past.

After a crippling wave of crime and decades of economic deterioration, a large-scale movement to revitalize the city is underway. For the first time in a long time, there’s cause for optimism. That is, until Malick’s latest investigation finds him tugging the threads on a criminal conspiracy that touches all rungs of Cain City society.

Brought to life by Academy Award®-winning actor F. Murray Abraham and an ensemble cast of narrators, and featuring original music by Michael Bacon, this collection contains Hans Christian Andersen’s most beloved fairy tales, as well as a selection of lesser-known favorites. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who collected and retold folklore and fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen adopted the most ancient literary forms and distilled them into a genre that was uniquely his own. His fairy tales are remarkable for their sense of fantasy, power of description, and vivid imagination.

This is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. Over the course of three weeks in present-day Washington, DC, three sons watch their parents' marriage falter and their family home fall apart. Meanwhile, a larger catastrophe is engulfing another part of the world: a massive earthquake devastates the Middle East, sparking a pan-Arab invasion of Israel. With global upheaval in the background and domestic collapse in the foreground, Jonathan Safran Foer asks us: what is the true meaning of home?

Tap Duvarney lost his innocence in the War Between the States and then put his skills to the test as a soldier in the frontier army. Now, leaving behind a devoted fiancée, he is trying to make his fortune on the Texas coast, working a ranch as the partner of his old friend Tom Kittery - and finding himself in the middle of a feud between Kittery and the neighboring Munson family.

Brooklyn, mid-2000s. After leaving behind the comforts of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney attempts to make ends meet by picking up odd jobs from a colourful assortment of clients. When the mysterious Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband, he trusts it will be an easy case.

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.

When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has always struggled to see past himself. But then a call from his ex makes him fear their daughter's in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. Believing he's the only one who can save her, he decides to return to New York with a gift: the whole of his life, its hard-won triumphs and harrowing mistakes.

It was strange because it wasn't so long ago that he was convinced the only way out of the depression that had crippled him since he was a child was death. But now, he is on a high-speed train, travelling from Rome to Modena, a failed novelist on the tail of a famous physicist whose memoir he is ghostwriting. The more of another man's life he writes, the more his debt to his publisher is paid off. But nothing would be possible had he not experienced the life-altering, life-saving treatment for the darkness which had been hovering since the chemical spill in West Virginia.

Six years ago, Henry and Celia were lovers and colleagues, working for the CIA station in Vienna, until terrorists hijacked a plane at the airport. A rescue attempt, staged from the inside, went terribly wrong. Everyone on board was killed. That night has continued to haunt all of those involved; for Henry and Celia, it brought to an end their relationship. Celia decided she'd had enough; she left the agency and is now living an ordinary life in California. Henry is still a CIA analyst and has travelled to the US to see her one more time.

Set in our world, spanning the near to distant future, the author, Arwen Elys Dayton, explores the possible consequences of advanced medical breakthroughs and how they may shape and reshape humanity. From organ donation to plastic surgery to full bodily reconstruction, these stories take you by your (for now, organic) hand and lead you into a future where the line between person and machine becomes increasingly blurred. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying and action-packed, this novel strikes new ground while also seeming so strangely...likely. Just try to disconnect.