Showing results by narrator "Todd McLaren" in All Categories

Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina's The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four points of the compass, from the high Arctic south to Antarctica, across the warm belly of the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific, then home again.

Sardonic, chain-smoking, java-addicted FBI Special Agent Andy Fisher is called to look into the possibility that a terrorist group claims to have acquired an "E Bomb" - which can disable all electronic systems within a 10-mile radius - from North Korea. Fisher doubts that the North Koreans could actually make a working lawnmower, let alone an E Bomb. But the threat is more immediate than he suspects: The terrorists are already proceeding toward their objective.

FBI agent Jack Ferico’s father is dying. His last wish? To see his estranged son, Danny, before he dies. Jack never got along with his older brother, but agrees to bring him home. Trouble is, Danny has disappeared without a trace. Jack’s search uncovers secrets, hidden agendas, and a danger more serious than he ever imagined. Danny specialized in stealth technologies at an international think tank. National security agencies suspect Danny sold classified technologies to the wrong people.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is Washington's response to America's call for a new regulatory framework for the 21st century. In The New Financial Deal, author David Skeel offers an in-depth look at the new financial reforms and questions whether they will bring more effective regulation of contemporary finance or simply cement the partnership between government and the largest banks. 

This grippingly intimate and heartbreaking book provides a portrait of the walking wounded who make up the base of the Trump movement. Desperate and angry, these are the Americans of the vanishing industrial heartland, depressed Appalachian coal country, and the no-man's land along the Southwestern border. These are coal miners, out-of-work construction workers, and small business owners who have watched their fortunes dwindle with each passing year.

My name is Marten Mann. I work for the devil, or the prince of lies, as you people are so fond of calling him. Yes. You read that last line correctly. I am employed by the powers of evil as acquisitor ad infinitum. I did not seek out this job: I was chosen for the position. To put it in simpler terms, I am a broker of sorts - you know, the guy who finds out what it is that you want the most. I make it readily available to you for a price. I think we all know just how costly that one thing that you think you need so much can be.

An inside account of the South Vietnamese elites who strove to carry on the war against the Communists during the US Army’s withdrawal. The book is a personal memoir of the author’s service as a US Army advisor during the end stages of America’s involvement in Vietnam. During the period 1970–71, the US was beginning to draw down its combat forces, and the new watchword was “Vietnamization.”

No one’s mourning the death of Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro. His heirs, including daughter Carla, are jockeying for power. Guerrilla rebels threaten to topple the teetering government. But there’s more at stake than just the island nation. Il Jeffe’s legacy includes a long-hidden atomic missile, left over from the Kennedy-era Bay of Pigs crisis - which guerrilla leaders threaten to use against any American interference. Ace pilot Marine Lt. Edward Garcia is tasked to find the launch site.

Dr. Harmon Gettys is the perfect man: tall, dark, handsome, and brilliant. He’d seemingly be a catch for any woman - especially those who desire an apparently charmed offspring. But Gettys uses his seed for murder, to create a legacy of violence. For Fire Marshal Greymon Gift, gruesome burn-related murders are nothing new. But a sudden spike in his jurisdiction has Gift on high alert. When an FBI investigation links multiple arson scenes to the deceased Dr. Gettys, Gift is pulled even deeper into a case that’s hot enough to start a conflagration.

When 57-year-old Ethan Zachary is ravaged by mysterious ball lightning, he starts growing progressively younger. As the condition begins to take hold, he realizes the end result will eventually kill him, ruining his plans to run for Congress - as well as his marriage. He does find a few compensations: his new youth and vigor attract a Cuban refugee reporter and a young lady lawyer, and his libido has been magically restored. Then a reclusive billionaire snatches "EZ" to use him as a medical guinea pig.

The time is 1953. The world has changed. Richard Curtis Van Loan has been forced to hang up his mask. But The Phantom Detective is drawn out of retirement by the sudden murder of his longtime friend, publisher Frank Havens; and must then face the greatest challenge in his long career, as he finds himself pursued and hounded by a vicious, unseen assailant, ?The Phantom's Phantom.? The hot, sunny hills of Southern California present a very different problem from the cold, dark-edged streets of the Big Apple. As the bodies begin piling up, Van Loan is driven to the very limit of his resources. Who is The Phantom's Phantom?

The name Edgar Allan Poe conjures up thoughts of hearts beating long after their owners are dead, of disease and plague amid wealth, and of love that extends beyond the grave. The richness of Poe's writing, however, includes much more than horror, loss, and death. Poe's stories teem with irony and black humor, in addition to plot twists and surprise endings.

There are moments where we all find ourselves too small for a problem or too limited for the task. Perhaps we are overwhelmed by a situation we’re facing financially, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, or relationally. We don’t have the answers, or the resources, or the strength, or words to say that would help, and we need divine intervention. A problem that is too big for us to solve on our own. We don’t know what to do, and no one else does either. So we turn heavenward to the Almighty God of the universe and ask for His help. Except we don’t know how to pray. 

The modern US Army was largely created in the years between the two world wars. Prior to World War I, officers in leadership positions were increasingly convinced that building a new army could not take place as a series of random developments but had to be guided by military policy. In 1920, Congress accepted that idea and embodied it in the National Defense Act. 

A historian shares strange-but-true stories of the city and its unsolved mysteries, from the nineteenth century to today. From Chicago historian Adam Selzer, expert on all of the Windy City's quirks and oddities, comes a compelling anthology of forty unsolved mysteries from the 1800s to the modern day. Among many other topics, he explores what really started the great Chicago fire; who was the first "automobile murderer;" the identity of the Tylenol killer; and whether there was actually a vampire slaying at Rosehill Cemetery.