Showing results by narrator "John Lee" in All Categories

Detective stories existed for centuries before the concept of the detective itself—amateur or professional— was fully formulated, and tales of mystery and intrigue have been thrilling readers since ancient times. The Lock and Key Library is the classic overview of the history of the mystery genre, at once a rousing listen for fans of the unsolved and unknown as well as an essential literary resource for those seeking to understand the roots of modern pulp fiction. This volume is sure to delight and enthrall armchair detectives and fans of classic mysteries alike.

Detective Paul Hjelm and his team receive an urgent call from the FBI. A murderer whose methods bear a frightening resemblance to a serial killer they believed long dead is on his way to Sweden. For years the FBI hunted the so-called ‘Kentucky Killer’, their agents haunted by the terrible injuries he inflicted on his victims through his signature device: a weapon that squeezed the vocal cords shut.

Has he somehow returned from beyond the grave to torture a new generation, or do they have a copy-cat on their hands? And what do they want in Sweden?

He's Code Blue when brought into the ER: a young drifter who wandered in from the desert, who was attacked for mundane reasons, and who broke his own hands on his attackers' faces and lacerated them with the jagged bones. His name is Clay Palmer, and he's one of the rarest people on earth... the carrier of a genetic mutation with frightening implications for humanity. With the time ticking on his self-control, Clay wages a desperate struggle to understand what has gone so wrong, with the help of psychologist Adrienne Rand and her anthropologist lover, Sarah.

Irish crime-fiction sensation Ken Bruen and cohorts shine a light on the dark streets of Dublin. Dublin Noir features an awe-inspiring cast of writers who between them have won all major mystery and crime-fiction awards. This collection introduces secret corners of a fascinating city and surprise assaults on the "Celtic Tiger" of modern Irish prosperity.

Kerovan of Ulmsdale has long borne the curse of his ancestors’ depredations. After pillaging a sanctum of the Old Ones, his bloodline has been forever marred by painful sickness and death. Kerovan was born strong and hardy, but he walks on hooves instead of human feet and sees through eyes of amber - just as the Old Ones had. Bound in marriage to the beautiful Joisan of Ithkrypt, Kerovan seeks to claim his rightful place as lord-heir of Ulmsdale. But first, the couple - separated by distance, yet linked in spirit - must unlock the powers held within a mystical necklace Joisan wears.

It is perilous to be a Catholic in the Ireland of 1735, and it's almost more than can be borne for 15-year-old Padraic Fitzbrian. Nearly 100 years before, Lord Protector Cromwell of England had put down the Irish rebellion confiscating lands, killing priests, outlawing the Mass, and prohibiting education of any kind for Irish Catholics. Padraic and his two friends, Liam and Rose, are in their last year as scholars in the forbidden and risky all-weathers classroom under the hedgerow.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

At first distant glance, the spherical object appeared nothing more innocuous than a shooting star. Yet, upon further observation, there was something unsettling about its descent. This was no natural free-fall. The year is 1953, and the citizens of the American rural town of Kingshire Falls are busy preparing for its centenary.

In the 17th century, a young man sailing from Venice to Naples is taken prisoner by pirates and delivered to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. There he is forced into slavery and left in the custody of a brilliant Turkish inventor known as Hoja - 'master' - a man who is his exact double. In the years that follow, the slave instructs his master in Western science and technology, from medicine to pyrotechnics.

The New Life by Orhan Pamuk is a spiritual journey into the arid heartland of Turkey, in the name of love, literature and freedom. 'I read a book one day, and my whole life was changed.' So begins The New Life, Orhan Pamuk's fabulous road novel about a young student who yearns for the life promised by a dangerously magical book. He falls in love, abandons his studies, turns his back on home and family, and embarks on restless bus trips through the provinces in pursuit of an elusive vision.

It began with stories of undead Taliban rampaging through Afghan villages, and faster than anyone could have anticipated, the darkness spreads through the world. In a world laid waste by this new terror, four unlikely companions have been thrown together: a 17-year-old boy dealing with the loss of his family; a US Navy SEAL trying to get back home; an aging, lonely writer with no one to live for; and a young girl trying to keep her three-year-old brother safe.

Meet Steve Firestone, late-night radio host and paladin. Since he joined the Arkane Academy for the Gifted and Strange, he's learned our world is full of supernatural monsters ripped from the pages of Dungeons & Dragons—and most of them want to eat or kill us. That's where Steve and his new friends come in. That is, if Steve can learn to channel the divine power of his mysterious patron. Depending on whom he talks to, it's either a Cthulhu-like space-squid or a fallen paladin residing somewhere in Hell. Neither seems like an ideal source.

Pamuk draws on Friedrich Schiller's famous distinction between "naive" poets-who write spontaneously, serenely, unselfconsciously-and "sentimental" poets: those who are reflective, emotional, questioning, and alive to the artifice of the written word. Harking back to the beloved novels of his youth and ranging through the work of such writers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, Mann, and Naipaul, he explores the oscillation between the naive and the reflective, and the search for an equilibrium, that lie at the center of the novelist's craft.

With her eyes open by the work of obesity expert Dr. Robert Lustig and others, Eve challenged her husband and two school-age daughters to join her on a quest to eat no added sugar for an entire year. Along the way, Eve uncovered the real costs of our sugar-heavy American diet including diabetes, obesity, and increased incidences of health problems such as heart disease and cancer.

John has been training the mythical mathematical creatures known as actuaries for nearly 20 years. Join John as he tries to help recalcitrant student actuaries pass their professional exams armed with nothing but a copy of the actuarial tables and a sense of humor. Experience his Basil Fawlty-like antics as he strives to maximize the likelihood of socially awkward actuaries being able to survive in the “normal” world.

Over a decade ago, as the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way.

US expatriate Bobby Ives is an aimless Vietnam veteran living in London with his girlfriend. The extremely volatile Ives is obsessed with two strange events in his past: the fact that he was declared dead in Vietnam via administrative error, and the time he experienced a vivid waking dream in which he became a zombie. Ives finds himself becoming more susceptible to uncontrolled rage; he also experiences quasi-fugue states where he lets that rage overwhelm him. In the midst of such a fugue state, he's capable of great violence. His girlfriend dies as the result of one of his rages; other victims soon follow.

First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compared and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name "Dracula" has been synonymous with the undead for at least a century, and the original novel still has the power to chill.

Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts his sights on unsuspecting England.

What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church, and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate for our human-robot future? From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future 'intimacy' bots and 'the robot that stole my job' bots, best-selling American popular science writer David Ewing Duncan's Talking to Robots is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined.

Despite having their secret revealed, the residents of Melbrook Hall return to Lander University for another year in the Hero Certification Program. Good thing the focus of this year is teamwork, because with their origins known they’ll have to lean on each other more than ever. Now finally sophomores, their curriculum expands, allowing them to train in the majors that Heroes specialize in. The new classes will test their minds, bodies, and determination in ways never anticipated.