Showing results by narrator "Jeff Harding" in All Categories

February 26, 1924 was the first day of the greatly anticipated high treason trial that would galvanize Germany - but few in the courtroom that morning anticipated that the leading defendant, General Erich Ludendorff, whose risky offensives during World War I doomed Germany to defeat, would soon be eclipsed by the private first class at his side, Adolf Hitler. Hitler was charged with treason after unsuccessfully trying to seize power in the notorious Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923.

Read by the author. LEADERSHIP STARTS WITH STORYTELLING With clarity around your message, you will energize those you lead and create a vision they can buy into. But first, you must first write the story that will get them excited and ready to execute. Clarity is key for any successful leader...

No Orchids for Miss Blandish was crime author James Hadley Chase’s first novel, and an experiment in adapting American hard-boiled crime fiction by a British author. Inspired by James Cain and The Postman Always Rings Twice, it worked so well that it launched the former salesman’s writing career. He went on to write over eighty novels sold worldwide with a huge American, Asian and European following.

Thomas Caine returns to active duty with the CIA's Special Activities Division. Under the command of Director Rebecca Freeling, Caine rushes to the Republic of Singapore to protect a vital intelligence asset. Codename: Larkspur, this mysterious contact holds the key to stopping a private terror network from corrupting America's most powerful intelligence agencies.

In Western Union: The year is 1861, and the nation is at war. The Western Union Telegraph Company intends to connect East with West as never before but is beset by enemies. Wires are cut and telegraph poles burned, and then matters take a darker turn when a repair crew is massacred. The question is, who might be responsible? Could it be embittered Indians, belligerent Confederates, or even the Pony Express, which will surely go out of business as soon as the transcontinental telegraph is completed?

Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) 'killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wisteria and H.G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers. Every strain of vegetable threat can be found within this new collection.

In 930 CE, a revered group of scholars pen the first sanctioned Bible, planting the seed from which other major religions will grow. But in 1953, half the manuscript goes missing while being transported from Syria. Around the same time, in the foothills of the Dead Sea, an ancient scroll is discovered - and promptly stolen. Six decades later, both parchments stand at the heart of a geopolitical battle between foreign governments and radical extremists, threatening the lives of millions.

Father Kevin Thrall, chaplain to an inner-city parochial school in Washington, D.C., leads a quiet and rewarding life. But to the Vatican, Thrall's past of elite military combat is uniquely suited for a dangerous mission - one directly tied to the mysterious prophecy revealed by the Blessed Virgin to three Portuguese shepherd children. The three Secrets of Fatima were closely held by the Vatican for decades, but many believe that the Vatican withheld important - and possibly dangerous - parts of the Third Secret.

Estranged after a devastating betrayal, brothers Victor and Frank Landis - sheriffs of neighbouring counties - hadn't spoken for years. In truth, Victor didn't care if Frank was alive or dead. Until the day somebody killed him. Crossing county lines in search of answers, Victor is soon on the trail of a sinister conspiracy that takes him deep into the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. From the poorest communities to the most powerful and corrupt organisations, he soon becomes ensnared in a dangerous web of drugs, trafficking and murder.

In the frozen wilderness of Alaska, a cabin is readied for the winter. Jonesy and Lisa, with their loyal dog Lad, have been preparing their home to avoid a repeat of their horrific first year living apart from civilisation. They survived that. They’ll survive this. But then the strangers arrive. Two people who are even more desperate to survive, who have clawed their way through hell to reach Jonesy and Lisa, and who will drag them back down there with them. And out in the forest, that other cabin waits for someone to return.

After 2,000 years of flawed history, here at last is a biography of Mary Magdalene that draws her out of the shadows of history and restores her to her rightful place of importance within Christianity. Throughout history, she has been both revered and reviled, a woman who has taken on many forms - witch, whore, the incarnation of the eternal feminine, and the devoted companion (and perhaps even wife) of Jesus. In this brilliant new biography, Bruce Chilton, a renowned biblical scholar, offers the first complete and authoritative portrait of this fascinating woman. His descriptions of who Mary was and what she did challenge the male-dominated history of Christianity familiar to most listeners.

In 1993 Lieutenant James Lechner, a member of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, was selected for a top secret special operations task force being sent to Mogadishu, Somalia, to capture the insurgent leader Mohamed Farah Aideed. In early October, after weeks on the ground and conducting a number of raids in the city, the Task Force is called upon to conduct a daylight mission into the heart of Aideed’s territory. During the raid, following the initial dangerous fast rope insertion and subsequent capture of a group of Aideed’s lieutenants, one of the Task Force Black Hawk helicopters is shot down.

“What are you reading?” That’s the question Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was...

From a centuries-old building on a narrow street in the heart of London, a firm known as the System, the world's most lucrative and least-known cartel, maintains a stranglehold on the world's diamonds. The company selects the stones a customer can buy and decides how much he must pay for the privilege. One dealer is tired of the game, and so he sets out to destroy the System forever.

Special agent Rake Ozenna watches as a fleet of Russian military helicopters head straight for his home. His tiny Alaskan island, with a population of just 80. What he doesn't know yet is why. Russia is playing a dangerous political game, reclaiming Rake's island as their own, even if it antagonises the US. Caught in the crosshairs of sabre-rattling big powers, Rake is determined to save his people and his island, even if it costs him his life.

While his masterpiece On the Road languished on the desks of unresponsive editors, Kerouac turned to Buddhism, and in 1953 began writing reading notes on the subject intended for his friend Allen Ginsberg. As his Buddhist study and meditation practice intensified, what had begun as notes evolved into a vast, all-encompassing work of nonfiction into which he poured his life, incorporating poems, haiku, prayers, journal entries, fragments of letters, ideas about writing, sketches, and more.

David Mitre has a very unusual set of skills, skills he has acquired over a long criminal career. Skills that make him an irritant for people like the FBI. Hiding among the expat community of the Greek islands, his cover is blown when he is witness to a stabbing on a Cyprus beach. The FBI want answers, and David is given an ultimatum: solve the murder or face imprisonment for his own crimes. Coerced into playing detective, David unwittingly uncovers a criminal enterprise far worse than anything he could have imagined.

Amber is happy. She loves her husband, David, and their dog, Sadie; she even loves her job as a junior editor on a local newspaper. But when the body of a young woman is found in a stretch of river near her home, Amber’s world begins to implode. The headaches that she has been struggling with seem to intensify, and Amber begins to doubt her husband. Why doesn’t he want to probe deeper into the story, and why does she seem to have such a shaky hold on her own thoughts and memories?

The Nightingale House is a new beginning for widower Daniel Price and his young daughter, Caitlyn. After months of grief, this will be the place where they start their life as a family of two. But something is wrong - Daniel can’t settle. There’s an odd, cold feeling in the master bedroom, and a mysterious dripping noise that seems to move from room to room. Whispers of I can’t sleep echo through the corridors, long into the night.

Jacob Reese enjoys the quiet life, running a coffee shop and renting out his cottage in The Hollows, Vermont. But the calm is shattered when a woman who looks eerily similar to his ex-girlfriend Laura turns up to stay in the cottage, and leaves a mysterious note in the guest book. Now Jacob’s seeing Laura everywhere - a glimpse of her face across the street, her music box left outside his house, a gift he gave her years before hanging from the trees. But it can’t be Laura. Because Laura’s dead.