Showing results by narrator "Joel Richards" in All Categories

Canyon Sacrifice brings the rugged western landscape, the mysterious past of the ancient Anasazi Indians, and the Southwest's ongoing cultural fissures vividly to life. A deadly struggle against murderous kidnappers in Grand Canyon National Park forces archaeologist Chuck Bender to face up to his past as he realizes every parent's worst nightmare: a missing child.

Lieutenant Scott Dillon isn't an overly complicated man - he has a rebel military operation to command and alien enemies to battle. But he also must cohabitate with humans in the middle of his unit's temporary home in remote Wyoming- humans who suddenly interest him on a much more personal level than ever before. Well, one human has enticed him, to be more precise: a female FBI linguist who not only speaks his native language, but managed to save his life in one of the worst fire fights he ever experienced - despite also being blind. That she's beautiful and alluringly sensual only arouses his interest even more.

Miscast in the role of assassin, inhabiting the stolen body of a stalwart savage, the star-wanderer from Earth found himself in dangers beyond even his wildest imaginings!

An interplanetary adventure in the grand tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

To him, Earth was a prison of the mind and body. Only on the world of the Green Star would he walk - in the borrowed body of a primitive youth.

Eldritch realities collide as mysterious renegades fracture the very laws of nature, summoning cosmic horrors into our realm. They never counted on Michael Bishop, Asset 108. Michael Bishop is a man who never dreams, who never gets ill. He is a weapon, a protector against things that dwell beyond our world. Bishop is deployed deep into the Mojave Desert, where cracks in reality seethe with cosmic abominations. There, madmen seek the end of all things, luring him into a labyrinth of impossible realities where grisly deaths lurk behind Michael’s every choice. 

Janelle Ortega and Chuck Bender are drawn deep into a threatening web of hostility and deceit in Saguaro National Park in this must-listen mystery.

When suspicious deaths befall a whitewater rafting expedition through Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family recognize evil intent lies behind the tragedies.

Hounded by false accusations of murder, archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family risk their lives to track down an unknown killer on the loose in a rugged canyon on the remote western edge of Mesa Verde National Park, where ancient stone villages and secret burial sites, abandoned centuries ago by the Ancestral Puebloan people, harbor artifacts so rare and precious they're worth killing over.

A famed sandstone arch in Utah's Arches National Park collapses and takes a woman atop it to her death, ensnaring archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family in lethal questions of environmental monkey wrenching and political intrigue. As more deaths follow, Chuck and his wife Janelle race to uncover the killer even as they become murder targets themselves.

Franklin is a wanted man living under an alias, and, more curiously, he has three wives. No More Strangers and Foreigners is a true story of polygamy lived in the open - not the sordid brand of the 21st-century polygamy with its child brides and forced marriages, but the saga of ordinary love and extraordinary lives. In a chain of polygamist colonies south of the Texas border, founded by fellow Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), the Spencers immerse themselves in the culture of their adopted land.

The thought of missing Christmas has little Calvin quaking in his roots. The smallest tree on his famous farm, his branches get all ruffled when a grumpy old coot says he isn't strong enough for ornaments. But he's thrilled when he's finally pulled from the ground and put on sale just in time for Christmas Eve!

Chace, a teenage orphan with the power to see the future, saves people anonymously by leaving them a letter to find in their moment of crisis. When his friends are in danger, he is there. He saves them but cannot predict the consequences. He can see their future, but he cannot see his own. Chase is interrupted while writing to save his best friend, Sarah. With an incomplete letter, her rescue feels equally incomplete inside. Sarah cannot rest until she speaks to the one person who helped her want to go on living.

When his father leaves town, 12-year-old Rodney Culver's mother takes up with Otis Dell, a fry cook at the local diner - and a well-known petty thief. While Rodney resists the man's influence at first, Otis soon draws the boy into his small-time criminal world. After a simple heist goes violently wrong, Rodney becomes an unwitting fugitive, swept away from his mother to the primitive mountain sanctuary of the mysterious Lester Fanning.

Dungeon. Quest. Adventure. A journey into madness. When John Younger answered the Regent's call to find a missing prince, he thought it would be an easy way to make some coin. He was wrong. Thrust into a life-or-death battle with creatures only heard about in stories long since forgotten, John finds himself in a dungeon of elder ones and old gods. As he descends into the heart of darkness, John must use all of his brains and brawn to successfully make it through each floor of the dungeon, while saving others and gaining the favor of those within.

It's the wedding of the century and the story you've waited a lifetime for! Archie finally marries Betty...and Veronica? Almost 80 years in the making!

Original story published in Lariat story magazine - July 1947.

Julia's daddy was the judge in town. He used to be fair, but recently it seemed that had changed. What cost to regular folks would there be?

Wayne D. Overholser, winner of three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, weaves a magic spell in this story with his consistent skill in presenting vibrant characters and his uncommon sensitivity to the depths of human personality.

Honest presentation is only one characteristic of Frazee’s well-crafted tales. He tells a convincing, satisfying, and unusual story even when employing stock Western situations. A major strength is his understanding of the nuances of character, of how people are motivated, of the good and bad within each person, and of the conflicts between man and his environment. Drawing upon his years in the mountains of Colorado, he can vividly and realistically depict a variety of Western settings and do so in such a way that the settings assume a character of their own.

A classic tale that features all the beloved subjects and icons - stagecoaches, gold rush towns, and whiskey bars - that represent the romance and excitement of America's frontier.