Showing results by narrator "Dion Graham" in All Categories

Funded by the U.S. Reparations Act and a consortium of billionaires, Kingsland rose from the sea to become a haven for Black excellence—and one of the richest nations in the world. But as its 10th anniversary nears, a series of shocking murders rocks the island. Enter Jamison Wright. An elite profiler lured away from the FBI with an offer no one could refuse: a new life in Kingsland for him and his family. But the deeper he digs into the killings, the more he realizes that Kingsland isn’t just a utopia—it’s a mystery wrapped in surveillance, secrets, and power plays far beyond his imagination.

On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship The Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, The Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.

Detective Michael Bennett is back and the race is on to catch a deadly killer terrorising New York. The Teacher has a meticulous and calculated plan. Cold-hearted and cunning, no one knows who he is or where he came from. Until now. Now it is time for everyone to learn his name as he teaches New York a lesson it will never forget. Intent on exacting revenge and causing mass hysteria, he embarks on the worst killing spree the city has ever seen.

The patriarch, C. F. Seabrook, was hailed as the "Henry Ford of Agriculture." His son Jack, a keen businessman, was poised to take over what Life called "the biggest vegetable factory on earth." But the carefully cultivated facade—glamorous outings by horse-drawn carriage, hidden wine cellars, and movie star girlfriends—hid dark secrets that led to the implosion of the family business. A compelling tale of class and privilege, betrayal and revenge three decades in the making, The Spinach King explores the author's complicated family legacy and the dark corners of the American Dream.

At 94 meters long and 9,500 deadweight tonnes, once called the Bibby Resolution, is an unremarkable hulk, crossing the oceans unnoticed. And yet, the astonishing journey of this boat can tell us the story of the modern world. First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to become a barracks for British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, a jail off New York in the 1990s, a prison in Portland in the 2000s, and accommodation for Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. It has been called Safe Esperia, HMP The Weare, even 'The Love Boat'.

Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, How Beautiful We Were tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made-and ignored. The country's government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest only. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back.

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album of all time Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue is a magnificent blended biography on the meandering paths which led Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and the aftermath. It's a book about music, business, race, addiction and the cities that gave jazz its home; from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. Kaplan meditates on creativity and the great forebears of this golden age who would take the music down strange new paths.

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head. Soon, a high-profile cold-case file is sent to Agent Adderley, now living in Sweden (where he’s not lived since he was a boy) in witness protection, hiding until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States. Adderley is determined to solve the case, even with a price on his head....

In this intimate biography of the Prince of Soul, David Ritz provides a candid look at a star and a friend. Ritz had been collaborating with Marvin Gaye on his story for several years before the singer's tragic death and had conducted a series of extraordinary interviews in which Gaye discussed his deepest secrets. What emerges is a full-scale portrait of a charming but tortured artist, a brilliant singer with a divided soul.

On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless--until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.

The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life. Biggie released his first record, Ready to Die, in 1994, when he was only 22. Less than three years later, he was killed just days before the planned release of his second record Life After Death. Journalist Justin Tinsley’s It Was All a Dream is a fresh, insightful telling of the life beyond the legend.

One of the few indisputable geniuses of pop music, Sly Stone is a trailblazer who created a new kind of music, mixing Black and white, male and female, funk and rock; penned some of the most iconic anthems of the 1960s and 70s, from "Everyday People" to "Family Affair"; and electrified audiences with a persona and stage presence that set a lasting standard for pop culture performance. Yet he has also been a cautionary tale, known as much for how he dropped out of sight as for what put him in the spotlight in the first place. As much as people know the music, the man remains a mystery.

Detective sergeant Denny Malone leads an elite unit to fight gangs, drugs and guns in New York. For 18 years he's been on the front lines, doing whatever it takes to survive in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean. What only a few know is that Denny Malone himself is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash. Now he's caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk a thin line of betrayal, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.

A million people, a billion, wanted to be where Mae was at this moment, entering this atrium, 30 feet high and shot through with California light, on her first day working for the only company that really mattered at all. A story from The New York Times Magazine, adapted from The Circle, a new novel by Dave Eggers.

Matthew Keating, a one-time Navy SEAL and a former US President, has always defended his family as fiercely as he has his country. Now these defences are under attack. And it's personal. Keating's teenage daughter, Melanie, has been abducted, turning every parent's deepest fear into a matter of national security. As the world watches, Keating embarks on a one-man special-ops mission that tests his strengths: as a leader, a warrior, and a father. Because Keating knows that in order to save Melanie's life he will have to put his own on the line . . .

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a strange book hidden in the library stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

Superman. Diesel. The Big Aristotle. Shaq Fu. The Big Daddy. The Big Shaqtus. Wilt Chamberneezy. The Real Deal. The Big Shamrock. Shaq....From growing up in difficult circumstances and getting cut from his high-school basketball team to his larger-than-life basketball career, Shaquille O'Neal lays it all out in Shaq Uncut: My Story.

Mokhtar Alkhanshali is 24 and working as a doorman when he becomes fascinated with the rich history of coffee and Yemen's central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral home to tour terraced farms high in the country's rugged mountains. He collects samples and organizes farmers and is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs the country. Saudi bombs rain down, the US embassy closes, and Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen with only his hopes on his back.

Paris is burning - and only Private's Jack Morgan can put out the fire. When Jack Morgan stops by Private's Paris office, he envisions a quick hello during an otherwise relaxing trip filled with fine food and sightseeing. But Jack is quickly pressed into duty after a call from his client, Sherman Wilkerson, asking Jack to track down his young granddaughter, who is on the run from a brutal drug dealer.

In The Accomplice, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and award-winning mystery writer Aaron Philip Clark introduce listeners to New York-born and Texas-bred Nia Adams, who always dreamt of becoming a Texas Ranger. She knows the dangers of the job, and as the first Black female ranger, she knows the politics, but she’s never encountered a criminal like Desmond Bell.