Showing results by narrator "Andy Caploe" in All Categories

In Odessa, the greatest port on the Black Sea, a dream of cosmopolitan freedom inspired geniuses and innovators. Yet here too was death on a staggering scale, as World War II brought the mass murder of Jews carried out by the city's Romanian occupiers. Odessa is an elegy for the vibrant, multicultural tapestry of which a thriving Jewish population formed an essential part, as well as a celebration of the survival of Odessa’s dream in a diaspora reaching all the way to Brighton Beach.

In the early 19th century passenger pigeons accounted for 25 to 40 percent of North America’s birds, traveling in flocks so massive as to block out the sun for hours. Although adults weighed only twelve ounces, they nested and roosted in the millions, destroying large oaks as if hit by hurricanes. Their favorite foods were the seeds and nuts of beech, chestnuts, and other forest trees, but they also raided farmers’ buckwheat, wheat, corn, and rye crops.

On the run from interplanetary assassins, covert operative Val Con yos'Phelium and former mercenary sergeant Miri Robertson end up stranded on a distant planet - with no rescue in sight. Until they figure out a way back to Liad, these two lost souls must find a way to trust each other - and let their true love heal the dark wounds of their past.

In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.

The treasure: At the end of the 13th century, Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan gave an Italian merchant unfettered access to his kingdom. The traveler was Marco Polo, and his journey would become legendary. Aided by a special passport that protected him throughout the land, Polo amassed unbelievable wealth and hid it before his return to Italy. To this day, the location of his treasure remains a mystery.

This long-awaited culmination of the Agent of Change sequence of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's internationally acclaimed Liaden Universe novels pits unexpected friends and unexpected enemies against each other in a war that spans planets and races - and threatens to bring interstellar violence to the very surface of fabled Liad.

A violent novel filled with insidious twists, Kingdom Come follows the exploits of Richard Pearson, a rebellious, unemployed advertising executive, whose father is gunned down by a deranged mental patient in a vast shopping mall outside Heathrow Airport.

In the third novel of the Liaden Universe, Priscilla Delacroix is betrayed and abandoned by her shipmates. But confronting the crew will be far easier - and safer - than confronting the demons of her past.

Pursued across space by the ultra-secret Department of the Interior, hunted by the galaxy-wide Juntavas syndicate, former Agent of Change Val Con yos'Phelium and his ex-soldier lifemate Miri Robertson have commandeered the only spaceship on Vandar and fled, seeking help from Miri's newly discovered kin on Lytaxin. Elsewhere, Clan Korval is in action. Scattered across space by the newly invoked Plan B, certain clan members pursue the search for the long-missing Val Con.

June 1, 2288 - Europe's first starship, the EASS Galileo, launches on its maiden voyage to investigate an unidentified object, code-named Spindrift, which is traveling outside our solar system. An object that may be alien in origin. The Galileo disappears soon after...February 1, 2344 - The Galileo's shuttle returns to Earth carrying three surviving expedition members, who still appear to be the same age they were when they departed. They report that they have, indeed, made contact with an extraterrestrial race.

Mervyn, wizard and Fluxlord, leader of the Nine Who Guard, faces the ultimate threat of the opposing Seven Who Wait: the opening of the Hellgates to World. Closed more than 2,000 years ago, they are portals to unknowable danger and, perhaps, great power. Mervyn must gather the shattered forces of guardianship, dispersed and reeling after the battle with Coydt....

For nearly 2000 years, the legendary tomb of Alexander the Great -and the extraordinary riches concealed within - has remained undiscovered, but recent events may hold the key to locating the fabled vault. Only one team has what it takes to solve the mystery that has plagued historians for centuries.

In a perilous future where disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every legal and illicit whim of their decadent masters, life is cheap. No one knows that better than Albert Morris, a brash investigator with a knack for trouble, who has sent his own duplicates into deadly peril more times than he cares to remember. But when Morris takes on a ring of bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles upon a secret so explosive it has incited open warfare on the streets of Dittotown.

A legendary CEO tells the inside story of building the world's largest insurance company - and the dramatic tale of its near-destruction after he left in early 2005, as successors transformed AIG and drove it to the center of the financial crisis of 2008.

Cassie did not feel the soul rider enter her body...but suddenly she knew that Anchor was corrupt, and that, far from being a formless void from which could issue ony mutant changelings and evil wizards, Flux was the soure of Anchor's very existence.

The price of her new knowledge is exile, yet Cassie and the Rider of her soul are the only hope for the redemption of both Flux and Anchor.

Physicist Dennis Nuel was the first human to probe the strange realms called anomaly worlds - alternate universes where the laws of science were unpredictably changed. But the world Dennis discovered seemed almost like our own - with one perplexing difference. To his astonishment, he was hailed as a wizard and found himself fighting beside a beautiful woman with strange powers against a mysterious warlord as he struggles to solve the riddle of this baffling world.

The West African country of Sierra Leone has long been known as a diamond-rich area. With civil war ripping the heart out of the country, all aspects of life there are unstable. Worst of all, guerrilla rebels, in their lust for the resource-rich land, have sunk to depravity and terrorism to evict people from the country.It's into this maelstrom of political and emotional turmoil that Ben and Danielle must go.

The last great battle of the Hellgates has been won and Flux and Anchor are at peace - for now. But someone has found the key to the magic of Flux. If they succeed in harnessing this fearsome power, the delicate balance could be destroyed. Who will stand when the horror of Flux is unleashed?

The definitive account of Louis Armstrong - his life and legacy - during the most creative period of his career. Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the acclaimed Louis Armstrong's New Orleans, following the story of the great jazz musician into his most creatively fertile years in the 1920s and early 1930s, when Armstrong created not one but two modern musical styles. Brothers wields tremendous skill in making the connections between history and music accessible to everyone.

1945: While liberating a concentration camp, an American medical unit uncovers something beneath a body-laden trench. Sixty years later, the survivors of that unit are systematically murdered because of what they saw. The Present: Enter former Palestinian-American detective Ben Kamal and his Israeli counterpart, Danielle Barnea. Working for the United Nations, Ben and Danielle are forced to return to the Middle East to investigate a massacre in a Palestinian village.