High Priest of California
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Narrated by:
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Chris Andrew Ciulla
About this listen
She was leaning against the door. Her smile was a sickly twisted grimace; the sort a prisoner gives a judge when he's asked if he has anything to say before he's sentenced. Russell Haxby is a ruthless used-car salesman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women. In this classic of hard-boiled fiction, Charles Willeford crafts a wry, sardonic tale of hypocrisy, intrigue, and lust set in San Francisco in the early '50s. In High Priest of California every sentence masks innuendo, every detail hides a clue, and every used-car sale is as outrageous as every seduction. First published 1953.
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7 hours and 27 minutes pure blisd
- By Mia on 01-05-13
By: Richard Yates
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Tomorrow Will Be Better
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.
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Heartfelt and Heart-wrenchingly Real!
- By M. Ryder on 02-16-22
By: Betty Smith
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The Night Always Comes
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 30, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she’s been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland’s housing prices have nearly quadrupled in 15 years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it’s their last best chance to own their own home - and obtain the security they’ve never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price.
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Willy knows tragedy
- By Phil Bailey on 08-03-21
By: Willy Vlautin
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The 42nd Parallel
- By: John Dos Passos
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.
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Powerful document of an all-too-familiar past
- By Ryan on 06-01-13
By: John Dos Passos
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Youngblood Hawke
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 41 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Arthur Youngblood Hawke, an ex-Navy man moves from rural Kentucky to New York to assault the citadel of New York publishing with his first novel, an oversized manuscript that becomes an instant success. Toasted by critics and swept along on a tide of popularity, he gives himself over to the lush life that gilds artistic success. Love comes with an affair with an older married woman and an unfulfilled flame with his editor, while wealth pours in with the publication of his second novel, and participation in real-estate developments.
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More than a good yarn
- By Arken on 10-24-18
By: Herman Wouk
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After the First Death
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why, before the police do.
By: Lawrence Block
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Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
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Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
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Post Office
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than 12 years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.
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Not his best, but still Bukowski
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 02-05-18
By: Charles Bukowski
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The Color of Money
- By: Walter Tevis
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years after he conquered the underground pool circuit in The Hustler, "Fast" Eddie Felson is playing exhibition matches with former rival Minnesota Fats in shopping malls. With one failed marriage and years of running a pool hall behind him, Eddie is now ready to regain the skills needed to compete in a world of pool that has changed dramatically since he left.
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if you play,,, you'll live it !!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-12-20
By: Walter Tevis
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The Sins of the Fathers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.
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Good introduction to a popular series
- By Sharron on 12-26-11
By: Lawrence Block
What listeners say about High Priest of California
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Alex halladay
- 06-08-23
thoroughly unpleasant classic willeford
To me, willeford shines as perhaps the single most cynical noir writer of his kind. each of his books, wall to wall, is filled with deeply unpleasant, vile people and their desperate victims.
this is no exception, high priest of California is arguably the single most evil point of view character willeford has written despite the fact his crimes are relatively minor in relation to his larger body of work. Obviously this is a mixed bag for a lot of people. some will be instantly turned off of this sleazy worm clawing his way into a woman's life by any means necessary, but others, like me, will find this as compelling an observation on banal evil and vanity as Jim Thompsons classic "the killer inside me".
really breezy quick read, one of the funniest, cruelest punchline endings of Willeford's career. worth picking up on sale if you can get it
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- GioSailor
- 10-04-24
Another excellent Willeford
This is another excellent Willeford book. It is more like a novella because of the shorter running time. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions around San Francisco from the point of view of a used car salesman and his attempt to hook up with a rather unusual lady. This one less heavy hitting than the brilliant Pick-up, also set in SF. Very effective narrator with a suitable voice.
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