Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Beville" in All Categories

Matt Kearns just needed to get away from it all - to grieve for his father and let the rugged wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula renew him, like it always had. But from the moment he arrives, nothing feels right. Strange happenings shake his confidence and have him questioning his sanity. Even the animals seem to know something is amiss. But each time he tries to leave, something - something truly malicious - violently pulls him back. What could it be? Why him? And what will he have to do to escape with his life?

In Ray Kurzweil's New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page.

By the year 2032, the US federal debt has surpassed $50 trillion. The American empire is on the verge of collapse. An entrepreneur named Kade Kapur has an idea for rescuing the debt-ridden United States: The government will issue stock in a company with exclusive mining rights to an asteroid whose orbit will soon bring it near Earth. The asteroid, which contains $10 trillion in valuable minerals, is officially called 2015 RK 16 Maimonides, but it soon comes to be known by another name: Mammon.

He is deadly and acts without remorse. He inflicts pain and death in service to his master. Now he's killed someone close to Dan and those he loves. It's become more than a mission for Dan; it's personal now. The assassin may want to lure Dan into his trap to kill him, but Dan has other ideas. One assassin must track another to his lair in a desperate attempt to eliminate him before anyone else dies.

In the aftermath of disaster, China and America vie for control over North Africa and the world, while a band of engineers and mercenaries risk everything to save millions from starvation and forge a better future for all mankind.

Land a lighthouse deal to catapult your startup over the chasm of early adopters and into the land of new opportunities with trillion-dollar companies. Navigate to the Lighthouse explains how to do that, using strategic business development as a competitive advantage. When you approach the chasm and look at lighthouses shining on potential trajectory-changing deals, two questions likely cross your mind: Should I invest the time and resources to pursue what seem like impossible deals? If so, what’s the path to get there—strategically and tactically? Kurt Davis has the answers.

Vegetarians have argued at great length that meat-eating is wrong. Even so, the vast majority of people continue to eat meat, and even most vegetarians eventually give up on their diets. Does this prove these people must be morally corrupt? Dan C. Shahar argues the answer is no: It's entirely possible to be an ethical person while continuing to eat meat - and not just the "fancy" offerings from the farmers' market, but also the regular meat we find at most supermarkets and restaurants.

In 1952, John T. “Jack” Downey, a 23-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard “Dick” Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next 20 years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns.

As US hegemony fails in the wake of an unprecedented economic crisis, wars erupt across the globe. Meanwhile, a small band of engineers and scientists work in secret on a mission to redirect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

Jim Hampton arrived in New Orleans, eager to escape the stress of quitting a lucrative law practice. Instead, he finds a city on edge as a tropical depression brews in the Gulf. The storm appears to be dredging up the odd and unusual like shells from the ocean floor. Shadowy figures appear in alleyways; mysterious voices seem to come from nowhere. Jim is skeptical of the locals' claims that these are warnings from victims of past storms. He had all but given up on belief in the supernatural. That is until he meets Myriam, who begins to restore the faith of his childhood.

International adventurer Steve Dane never should have set foot in Italy. Witnessing a young woman’s kidnapping, he is drawn into a decades-old vendetta. Racing against time, Dane battles the mafia who want him dead and the police and who want him out of the way.

Sheriff Ulysses Walker of Taos County investigates a killer with a delusional vendetta stalking meditators at Sleeping Tiger Zen Center. As he pursues the murderer through the backcountry, Ulysses quickly finds himself and those he is supposed to protect in mortal danger.

Authentic, hard-hitting, and profoundly thought-provoking, this riveting real-life legal thriller offers an incendiary exposé of the turmoil and hidden dangers behind the trailblazing legalization of the cannabis industry. As the first-ever memoir of its kind, van Leynseele’s story provides a cautionary tale, pulling back the curtain on the systemic problems within legal marijuana, the institutional sexism still lurking in the legal profession, and the biases that lead to white-collar criminals exploiting the system and getting away with it.

A desperate SOS from an old friend sends Steve Dane to the rescue - only to find that he's too late. Tom Wexler is dead, and the stolen Iraqi antiquities he was trying to recover are gone again. With Nina Talikova by his side, Dane is determined to find out who killed his friend and restore a nation's history. But the chessboard is not in his favor, and when checkmate comes, Dane discovers his enemies were once allies who know every move he'll make.

Ulysses Walker, Sheriff of Taos County, is facing a tough re-election campaign against a well-funded opponent when a respected historian and acequiero. The murder looks like a dispute over shared irrigation water at first. But after two more murders the sheriff uncovers a web of corruption born out of New Mexico's troubled history.

The conventional wisdom is wrong about how great teams are built. Great teams worry less about cohesion and more about assembling the right group of people with complementary talents and personalities. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. In Team Players, Mark Murphy argues that the best teams contain an ideal mix of five vital roles: Director, Achiever, Stabilizer, Harmonizer, and Trailblazer. Murphy’s groundbreaking research shows how to unlock each team member’s talents and position them to succeed within the team.

When the deadly duo witnesses a catastrophic terrorist attack, they don't stand idly by. They run into the fray, engaging the enemy, and stumble upon a message the killers leave behind. Graypoole has been resurrected. It's an impossible development. Dane knows Graypoole, a terrorist who targeted capitalists, is dead - killed by a black ops team. But as he and Nina follow the evidence, they learn Graypoole's son has taken over. And Junior wants revenge. One incident of mass murder, and killing the men who murdered his father, isn't enough. He's planning a bigger attack for an encore.

Monaco was a nice vacation - until Steve Dane and Nina Talikova witness a secret agent’s murder. Now loose ends in a Russian conspiracy to steal a direct-energy weapon from the U.S., the assassins pursuing them have made a grave miscalculation. Dane and Nina are former spies who know all the tricks. Their trail of vengeance leads from Monaco to Texas, to a showdown in the Gulf of Mexico, where Dane is taken prisoner by an opponent who intends to settle old hatreds long thought buried. Outgunned and alone, Steve Dane negotiates the only terms the enemy understands: certain death.

Steve Dane faces a day of reckoning long overdue when he learns the truth about his father. But the truth is a bitter pill when he discovers his father's death ties to rogue agents within US intelligence who use Agency assets to further their own agenda. With battle lines drawn, Steve Dane and Nina Talikova do what they do best: Attack! From the shores of Maryland to the blistering heat of a South American jungle, Dane and Nina destroy each tentacle of the enemy before finally coming face-to-face with the top dog himself and a final crippling betrayal.

On Earth, Grover Baines (a NASA scientist) is murdered in 1979 when he stumbles upon a secret third Voyager flight. Unlike the two other probes, Voyager 3 was a small manned craft loaded with reproductive material in hopes of finding a suitable planet for habitation on Alpha Centauri. Years later, in 2001, a fourth Voyager is sent on the same mission. Though technology has advanced dramatically in the 24 years since the first three Voyagers were launched, this mission manages to remain secret amid the attacks on the Twin Towers.