Showing results by narrator "Patrick Cronin" in All Categories

A blood-thirsty being is on the rise, resurrecting Old West outlaws. But who is this El Diablo? All evidence points to an eccentric billionaire whose estate lies just outside our jurisdictional reach. Worse, an old-school sheriff seems determined to keep it that way. As menaces teeter into full-blown madness, I’m counting on James to ramp up his smarts and spell-casting. Success will mean the end of the Croft and Wesson era, but failure could condemn all of Grimstone to a hellish oblivion.

Enter the wizard duo of Croft and Wesson. That’s Professor Everson Croft, the bookish spellcaster from New York City, and James Wesson, the smooth-talking, skirt-chasing, wannabe cowboy. Confronted with everything from resurrected outlaws to ancient evils, two mages are better than one, right? Sure, if they can stop butting heads long enough to solve a case. And maybe—just maybe—not blow Grimstone off the map.

On the early morning of March 16, 1968, American soldiers from three platoons of Charlie Company entered a group of hamlets located in the Son Tinh district of South Vietnam, located near the Demilitarized Zone and known as "Pinkville" because of the high level of Vietcong infiltration. The soldiers, many still teenagers who had been in the country for three months, were on a "search and destroy" mission. Three hours after the GIs entered the hamlets, more than 500 unarmed villagers lay dead, killed in cold blood.

Chris Gordon and Tanya Demidova are the world's top close quarters battle experts. As fast and powerful as elder vampires, with supernatural weapons that match their supernatural speed, strength, and senses. But how does a close quarters warrior fight an enemy that is literally light years away - 25,000 light years away?

With Declan O'Carroll on Fairie and Chris Gordon on Earth, what could go wrong? Try everything. Scheming elves, deadly zombies, killer goblins, flaming dragons, and dirty diapers. With a growing, insidious threat to Earth, Chris and Tanya race to save lives while Declan, Stacia, and friends work just as hard to save their own lives on an alien world, far removed from the comforts and safety of home. Only together will they overcome the odds. But, come on, with this team, maybe the odds should look out.

Matheus Taylor didn't ask to be murdered. To be fair, the percentage of people actually asking to be murdered is probably small enough to be safely ignored, but he felt it was worth stating regardless. His life might have been ordinary, but it was his life and he wasn't done with it yet. Quin didn't care. A 1,700-year-old Roman, Quintus Livius Saturnius had a different view of morality than most people. Killing Matheus and hijacking his undead existence seemed perfectly acceptable to him.

How did Circuit City go from a Mom and Pop store with a mere $13,000 investment, to the best performing Fortune 500 Company for any 15-year period between 1965 and 1995, to bankruptcy and liquidation in 2009? What must leaders do not only to take a business from good to great, but to avoid plummeting from great to gone in a constantly evolving marketplace?

Former Marine, brilliant hacker, and wanted fugitive Gibson Vaughn is off the grid in the Caymans. Until the ice-cold assassin Tinsley draws him out of the shadows. Complying with the man who murdered his father and left Gibson for dead? In the war against terror, never say never. Especially when half a million lives are at stake. Tinsley's in possession of a heavily encrypted thumb drive. But the details of the plot - the motive, the targets, and the day of execution - are a mystery.

Birmingham, Alabama, is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named "Harry the Hacker" by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.

Rade Galaal and his team of special operators are deployed to a colony under attack by a strange new alien race. Their mission: find the extraterrestrial base and destroy it. The operation should be easy, given that his men pilot Brigand mechs: massive, 25-foot-tall war machines armed to the teeth with electrolasers, rockets, incendiary throwers, and more. But it's not easy. Rade and his team soon find themselves in over their heads. Surrounded by an entire world of enraged aliens, they must rely on their wits, their training, and their mechs to survive.

Paksenarrion was the finest paladin her world would ever see. But Paksenarrion could never have become a fighter at all had it not been for he who had come before: Gird, the liberator, who taught his people that they could fight - and win - against their Mage-born rulers. And after Gird came one more: Luap, Gird's sworn follower and the king's half-breed bastard. Riven by internal conflict, Luap dare not lie and cannot tell the truth, nor face the future.

Something unholy is hunting the streets of Burlington, Vermont, stalking the campus of the local university. Chris Gordon and his contingent of demon hunters is drawn to the northern Vermont city by a brutal murder of hellish proportions, ready to banish it from Earth. But this Hellion is direct from the Abyss, incarnate and fully possessed of all the powers of high Hell royalty - female royalty at that. It’s been said that the female of the species is deadlier than the male, and this one might be the deadliest of all.

With the discovery of the so-called "living water" on Novus, three different superpowers are competing for the one small valley where the miracle elixir can be found. From the United States, Major Ethan White is heading up a company of elite Army Rangers charged with claiming the valley for America, but with Earth overrun by the Watchers, he's now looking for a way to go back and join the fight.

I'm losing control. Past choices are coming back to haunt me, and an old curse threatens to drive me from the pack. Sky is the only person who can help me with the curse. To do so, she'll have to perform forbidden magic that will draw the attention of the witches. They've been vying for a reason to kill Sky, and performing forbidden magic will give them one. In the past, I haven't given Sky a reason to trust me, let alone the desire to save me. Now I need her to do both. Will she risk her life to save mine?

After prospecting for gold in Arizona, Confederate Civil War hero John Carter stumbles upon a mysterious cave - a portal, it turns out, to the ecologically endangered planet Mars. Once there, he finds his place with a tribe of green Martians, and his newfound powers in the reduced Martian gravity make him an important figure in their war against a rival tribe. At the heart of this conflict lies the beautiful Dejah Thoris, the kidnapped Princess of Helium. Rescuing her soon becomes paramount, for only she can help Carter save the dying planet he now calls home.

After killing Rahaab, the most powerful dragon on Earth, Steven Drokharis knew he’d have to fight to keep what he’d won, but the cabal that killed his father was just the tip of the iceberg. He’ll have to fend off a cult of shapeshifters, magical constructs, and two devious, busty, machine-gun-toting twins, all while keeping his escort of human and dragon women satisfied. Meanwhile, the eyes of ancient demons are ever searching for signs of dragons, and the deadliest threat may be close to home.

Alone and weaponless, with a remote controlled bomb in his neck, Ajaya Gurung must plan and fight better and harder than ever before. The last Spider is out there, in the Zone, plotting the end of man, and man is ignoring the danger. Left with only his skills, wits, and courage, he must adapt and overcome before it's too late. If only he had an ace in the hole...oh wait...he does!

Everson Croft here, professor of mythology and nervous as sin. Tonight's the night I tell Caroline the truth: about my feelings, my magic, everything. So why am I surprised when Detective Vega calls me to a new case? An elusive creature is chewing up residents in a housing project run by rival gangs. One more mangled body and the place will explode into warfare. Problem is, someone's protecting the killer.

As two worlds reel from a colossal final pulse that cuts off all contact between them, two unimaginable discoveries raise the stakes even further. In a secret American facility, a power hidden from society for a decade is about to break free. And something much bigger, buried deep beneath the Scottish Highlands for thousands of years, is about to rise up.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.