Showing results by narrator "Peter Berkrot" in All Categories

When struggling painter Nicholas Gray first sees Margaretha Zelle, it is in a poor photograph. But something draws him to her. All men are drawn to Margaretha - her mysterious eyes, her effortless sensuality. In another life she will become known as Mata Hari. As a dancer she becomes famous. As a seductress she becomes legendary. Soon Mata Hari is crisscrossing Europe, collecting generals, aristocrats, and businessmen as her lovers.

Former Wall Street whiz and current convict Mickey Steinberg is nearing the end of his three-year sentence at Yankton - the cushy country club prison where he's enjoyed celebrity status - and he's ready to get out and get back on top. He doesn't have the resources he once did, but he's already hatched a new plan to sell a forgery of a stolen Van Gogh painting through the shady underground art market. He and his new partner, the smooth-talking Paul Reece, have a mark in mind: The sleazy con-man art dealer who swooped in on Mickey's beloved ex-wife after he was locked up. But with his old partner, Jack Grass, hell-bent on revenge and his pre-prison life closed to him, it won't be easy.

The world was desperate. Since the empire had fallen a hundred years ago, Gwin and her people had nearly given up hope that the Renewer would come. Gwin had lost everything. Her husband was killed in one of the wars. Her children died of Star Sickness. Even her work at the hostel was in jeopardy because the politicians had it out for her. The cursed Gwin, therefore, had nothing to lose. When she took in the girl, a survivor of the Star Sickness, it was a dreadful crime.

This humorous travel book, based on Twain's stagecoach journey through the American West and his adventures in the Pacific islands, is full of colorful caricatures of outlandish locals and detailed sketches of frontier life. Roughing It describes how the narrator, a polite greenhorn from the East, is initiated into the rough-and-tumble society of the frontier.

The enclosed was transcribed from 10 mini-cassette tapes that were recovered from the offices of Boston attorney William J. Latch following his disappearance on June 19, 2014. These tapes are part of the evidentiary record in the civil case of Latch V. Weymouth Life & Casualty. William J. Latch was declared dead by the State of Massachusetts in April 2015 after Magistrate Gavin FitzGerald reviewed these tapes, privately, in his chambers. Weymouth Life & Casualty was therein ordered to release Latch's survivor's benefits to his children. Latch's body has never been found.

What started as a military coup in Pakistan has ignited South Asia and threatens to spread to the world's largest democracy in India. American and British allies struggle to rescue Western civilians who have been cut off in Islamabad. What starts as a desperate race turns into a grim siege. But the fate of a few innocents pales in comparison to one inescapable fact: Pakistan is a nuclear power and some of those weapons are unaccounted for.

Bestselling author Loren W. Christensen served as a Military Policeman in Saigon, Vietnam, "the most dangerous city in the world," as it was called at the time. Shortly after returning home, he joined the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon, serving for twenty-five years. As a street cop, there were times he was dispatched to dead body calls so frequently that other officers teasingly called him the "Death Car."

Benjamin Wilder grew up with sparse shelter, infested provisions, and constant abuse dealt to him by his stepfather: Jessup — a.k.a. the Rabid Dog. Without a sober mother to defend him from the Rabid Dog’s wrath, Ben finds reprieve and adventure in a club of misfit boys called the Black Machetes. But the world as Ben knows it comes to an end when he witnesses an act so psychologically appalling that it forces him to run for his life.

Where do writers go when they die? The forgotten ones, at least, go to the Café of Minor Authors where they drink endless cups of cappuccino, self-obsess, and nurse their shattered dreams. Some authors, it’s rumored, can escape Oblivion if they try hard enough to write something the universe can’t ignore, even after death. This is the story of one ambitious writer stuck in Oblivion who not only risks upturning his own fate but also the fate of his literary hero and that of his great grandmother, Hanna, an aspiring actor in the Yiddish theater in the Prague of 1911.

Award-winning novelist Michael Pronko examines Tokyo as a place, a culture, and a series of intense experiences, with humor, delicacy, and enchantment. More than just a setting for novels and films, Tokyo is a lively, interactive space that constantly pops up questions: How do you sweat politely, in Tokyo’s sweltering summers? How do you glance sideways, on crowded trains? How do homeowners transform a sliver of space into an impeccable garden? The answers are not what one might expect.

Whether contemplating Tokyo’s odd-shaped bonsai houses, pachinko parlors, chopstick ballet, or the perilous habit of running for trains, the short, personal writings in Beauty and Chaos explore Tokyo from the inside to reveal the city’s deeper meanings and daily pleasures. Part travelogue, part comparative culture, and packed with insights, these sharply observed vignettes tap into the daily mysteries of Tokyo life to reveal what’s beneath the gleaming, puzzling exterior of the biggest city in the world.

This full-cast audiobook, featuring 11 different voice actors, and narrated by Hillary Huber, take on the roles of the Tandem Players, a group of community theater actors that love their community theater almost as much as they love the sweet old landlady who gave them a home to perform their plays in over the years. But when she passes away, and the will that was to leave the Broadtown Theater to the acting troupe disappears, they don’t even have time to mourn their loss. Her son comes in like a wrecking ball....

Set over the course of one Sunday, The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a collection of interconnected vignettes that takes the listener through the streets and across the sidewalks of Cypress Avenue - an unkempt afterthought, just a place that sits at the neighborhood border edge of Ridgewood Queens, New York.

The crime fiction canopy's a broad one, with room to give shelter to writing of all sorts, as editor Lawrence Block shows with At Home in the Dark.

It’s September 1944, and the US is poised to launch Operation Frantic, a shuttle bombing mission to be conducted by American aircraft based in Great Britain, southern Italy, and three Soviet airfields in the Ukraine. Tensions are already high between the American and Russian allies when two intelligence agents - one Soviet, one American - are found dead at Poltava, one of the Ukrainian bases. Billy is brought in to investigate, and this time he's paired, at the insistence of the Soviets, with a KGB agent who has his own political and personal agenda.

Five years ago, Robert Clarion was immersed in that perilous world of double-crosses, late-night drug deals, and constant glances over his shoulder. A dispute with a drug supplier culminated in the kidnapping of Clarion's daughter Rachel. He made a promise to his wife that, if they got their daughter back, he would get out of the drug business and never let anyone stand in the way of his family's safety again. With the help of FBI agent Jack Paris, Clarion's daughter was rescued, but the person who carried out the kidnapping was never identified or captured.

General George S. Patton was America's antihero of the Second World War. Driven by an innate sense of duty, both to his family’s great military tradition and to his country, he was fixated on the notion of reaching the status of a military legend and driven by outdated notions of honor. Simultaneously brilliant and deeply flawed, he could be daring and noble and then petulant and cruel, lacking in the diplomatic grace and tact that defined many of his contemporaries.

It was 1945, and Romek Wajsman had just been liberated from Buchenwald, a brutal concentration camp where more than 60,000 people were killed. He was starving, tortured and had no idea where his family was - let alone if they were alive. Along with 472 other boys, including Elie Wiesel, these teens were dubbed 'The Buchenwald Boys'. They were angry at the world for their abuse and turned to violence: stealing, fighting and struggling for power. Everything changed for Romek and the other boys when Albert Einstein and Rabbi Herschel Schacter brought them to a home for rehabilitation.

The "meat" of The Mueller Report is contained in his summaries of the report. Did the Russians interfere in our 2016 election? Did the Trump campaign collude with the Russians? Did Trump attempt to obstruct the investigation? Mueller presents the evidence but does not make judgments.

In this new anthology offered by Blunder Woman Productions, you’ll take a trip down twisty roads into forests, back alleys, and even across the border between life and death. Together these tales are funny, creepy, weird, contemplative, traditional, and speculative. The characters in these stories might take a wrong turn, but it’s the right move for any fan of thrillers and mysteries.