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Bad Call
- A Summer Job on a New York Ambulance
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
An adrenaline-fueled read that will stay with you long after the you listen to the last sentence, Bad Call is a "compulsively readable, totally unforgettable"* memoir about working on a New York City ambulance in the 1960s. (*James Patterson)
Bad Call is Mike Scardino's visceral, fast-moving, and mordantly funny account of the summers he spent working as an "ambulance attendant" on the mean streets of late-1960s New York.
Fueled by adrenaline and Sabrett's hot dogs, young Mike spends his days speeding from one chaotic emergency to another. His adventures take him into the middle of incipient race riots, to the scene of a plane crash at JFK airport and into private lives all over Queens, where New Yorkers are suffering, and dying, in unimaginable ways. Learning on the job, Mike encounters all manner of freakish accidents (the man who drank Drano, the woman attacked by rats, the man who inflated like a balloon), meets countless unforgettable New York characters, falls in love, is nearly murdered, and gets an early and indelible education in the impermanence of life and the cruelty of chance.
Action-packed, poignant, and rich with details that bring Mike's world to technicolor life, Bad Call is a gritty portrait of a bygone era as well as a bracing reminder that, though "life itself is a fatal condition," it's worth pausing to notice the moments of beauty, hope, and everyday heroism along the way.
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What do you do when murderers have killed your wife and destroyed your daughter? Until that awful moment Paul Benjamin was an ordinary man - but the unspeakable violence that shattered his life turned him into someone quite different. Someone destiny was shaping into a bizarre instrument of vengeance. This is the novel that spawned the classic movie starring Charles Bronson.
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alonzo
- By lloyd on 10-19-11
By: Brian Garfield
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American Rust
- By: Philipp Meyer
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation-as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love-that arise from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.
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A Web of Despair and Desperation
- By Darwin8u on 07-16-12
By: Philipp Meyer
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The Quiet Game
- By: Greg Iles
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.
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Complex and Good Courtroom Drama!
- By R. Pontiflet on 02-09-15
By: Greg Iles
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Bone Dry
- By: Bette Golden Lamb
- Narrated by: Beth Richmond
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine. You have cancer. You’ve been blasted and wasted with chemotherapy, along with every other poison the doctors could find to kill malignant cells. Most days you’re more dead than alive. Now there is one last chance for survival. Tomorrow you will be infused with your own, treated bone marrow frozen, stored, and safe in one of California’s most prestigious hospitals. Then comes the note: “We have your marrow.... pay or die."
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Not bad, not great, it was OK"
- By Laurie Carroll on 03-13-16
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City of the Sun
- A Novel
- By: David Levien
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Jamie Gabriel gets on his bike before dawn to deliver newspapers in his suburban Indianapolis neighborhood. He is 12 years old. Somewhere en route, he vanishes without a trace. Crushed by frustrating dead ends and exhausted by a police force that cannot (or will not) find their son, the Gabriels finally stumble upon a name - an elusive private investigator who may represent their last chance for answers.
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Workmanlike thriller. Scott Brick is annoying.
- By Richard Delman on 01-13-13
By: David Levien
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Last Night in the OR
- A Transplant Surgeon's Odyssey
- By: Bud Shaw
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1980s marked a revolution in the field of organ transplants, and Bud Shaw, MD, who studied under Tom Starzl in Pittsburgh, was on the front lines. Now retired from active practice, Dr. Shaw relays gripping moments of anguish and elation, frustration and reward, despair and hope in his struggle to save patients. He reveals harshly intimate moments of his medical career.
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Expect alot of bad language!
- By Lynn L. on 08-10-16
By: Bud Shaw
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The Body in the Woods
- Point Last Seen Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: April Henry
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexis, Nick, and Ruby have very different backgrounds: Alexis has spent her life covering for her mom's mental illness, Nick's bravado hides his fear of not being good enough, and Ruby just wants to pursue her eccentric interests in a world that doesn't understand her. When the three teens join Portland County Sheriff's Search and Rescue, they are teamed up to search for a autistic man lost in the woods. What they find instead is a dead body. In a friendship that will be forged in danger, fear, and courage, the three team up to find the girl's killer.
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Consistency in the story
- By DAVIDGAUDET on 03-31-24
By: April Henry
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Forty Words for Sorrow
- By: Giles Blunt
- Narrated by: James Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When the badly decomposed body of 13-year-old Katie Pine is found, John Cardinal is vindicated. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case open and Cardinal had been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal. But Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have gone missing and Cardinal is now given the go-ahead to reopen the files on three other lost kids. When another youth is reported missing, he begins to see a pattern that screams "serial killer."
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even better than the TV show
- By Allison Payne on 04-21-20
By: Giles Blunt
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Blindsighted
- By: Karin Slaughter
- Narrated by: Kathleen Early
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation - a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later.
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Start here first...
- By Becka1310 on 02-01-18
By: Karin Slaughter
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Aurora
- A Novel
- By: David Koepp
- Narrated by: Rupert Friend
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.
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The Best of Us
- By James Munoz on 09-09-22
By: David Koepp
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Report from Engine Co. 82
- By: Dennis Smith
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Report from Engine Co. 82 is the story of one company of New York firefighters battling unimaginable death and destruction every day. Dennis Smith worked as a firefighter in the South Bronx, New York City, and the graphic detail and gripping prose of this firefighting classic drives the most important, accomplished, terrifying audiobook ever published on firefighting.
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stog was good
- By Bagladybl on 08-24-21
By: Dennis Smith
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Cop Town
- By: Karin Slaughter
- Narrated by: Kathleen Early
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Atlanta, 1974: It's Kate Murphy's first day on the job, and the Atlanta Police Department is seething after the murder of an officer. Before the day has barely begun, she already suspects she's not cut out to be a cop. Her male uniform is too big, she can't handle a gun, and she's rapidly learning that the APD is hardly a place that welcomes women. Worse still, in the ensuing manhunt she'll be partnered with Maggie Lawson, a cop with her own ax to grind.
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Outstanding, Gutsy Crime Novel Read by a Master
- By Chip Atkinson on 07-08-14
By: Karin Slaughter
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Nick of Time
- By: John Gilstrap
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Nicki Janssen's days are numbered, but she refuses to accept her fate lying down. Defying her father and doctors, she hits the road with a pocketful of cash, a bus ticket - and a romantic fantasy of riding off with her childhood crush. Handsome, dangerous Brad Ward is facing a different kind of sentence. Sent to prison for felony murder, he has escaped and rekindled his relationship with Nicki. But when Nicki's father joins forces with a deputy sheriff, the search for the runaways ignites a manhunt.
By: John Gilstrap
What listeners say about Bad Call
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- IowaGreyhound
- 03-15-22
Interesting look at life as an ambulance driver
Gives a view at being an ambulance driver in NYC in the days before EMTs. Interesting stories and a colorful look at people and patients in all walks of life. Pretty short and I listened to most in one setting.
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- Sharlotte
- 03-14-22
Fantastic!
This is a definite five-star book: exciting, educational, eye-opening, and very well-narrated. Scardino has real talent for writing and holding his reader cast under his spell!
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- jenny
- 04-19-21
such a well written memoir!
I loved every single bit if it. such a great mind for detail and the narration was great
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1 person found this helpful
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- AK
- 08-01-18
Short Stories of Experiences on an Ambulance
This is an interesting individual Account over a period of several years, working on an ambulance. If someone is considering a career in this field, this will be a good book to listen to.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Catherine G. Brady
- 06-02-22
Challenges of Ambulance Psychology
As a retired E.M.T./combat medic and physician assistant, I found this book true to the medical experience, as well as masterfully written and performed. The language is raw at times, but very true to the situations in which it is used.
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- Andrei Arkhipov
- 08-19-18
<Can’t make this up> stories
This book puts you in the life of an ambulance worker. From start to end it is filled with stories of death and survival under unusual circumstances and action that would be hard to make up if you tried, unless you’d been there. The author overlays the very graphic depictions with what goes through the mind of someone working in this tough profession. All together this makes for a very captivating read. If you are into nonfiction books that transcend you into a part of the world that you don’t normally get to see – this book is for you.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Elizabeth
- 12-09-18
Finished in One Sitting
I’m an artist in the midst of the holiday season, which means that in the year’s last quarter I spend around 16 hrs a day working on orders at my drafting table. 16 hours that I am desperate to fill with distractions.
This was one fantastic distraction! Time flew with each engrossing chapter until with dismay, I realized the book was finished and I’d listened to the entire thing in one go.
Mike Scardino provides an intense, unrelenting glimpse inside a NYC ambulance. This isn’t a novel about body horror and death, though, even as both are present (it is an ambulance, after all). Mr. Scardino’s perspective is equally beautiful and reflective as it is weary and jaded. With each hardship, he manages to leave one thoughtful instead of bogged down with angst.
Overall, a great listen! In three words: sobering, engrossing, and thoughtful.
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4 people found this helpful
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- PCF
- 03-10-19
I loved this book!
There is something about this book that cannot be explained. You just need to listen to it. The narrator did a phenomenal job! His voice portrayed what I am sure the author intended. I wish every audible book was as well done as this one. This new EMT takes the listener along for a ride on the calls he goes on and explains things as if they are happening in the present tense. It is a very unique approach to writing. He'll say something like "Now we're going up to the 6th floor. I'm opening the door to the apartment now." I do think this book was hilarious at times and that might have been my medical background appreciating the dark humor of it. The calls they go on are sometimes shocking, other times just sad. He explains in detail what he goes through giving anyone considering this profession an earful. I really enjoyed this book and basically listened nearly straight through.
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6 people found this helpful
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- M. Holley
- 04-16-22
Eye Opener
I selected based on the title and could not turn it off. Truly an eye opener for this sort of storytelling, great narration and an understandable ending.
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- R. Frost
- 01-26-23
Well worth a listen
This turned out to be a very entertaining book. I had never thought about how many behind the scenes stories an EMT could tell. The timeframe was from the late 60's, which is very different from today, but that made it even more fun to listen to.
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