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The Onion Field
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
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Hollywood. Saturday night. A broken taillight leads to a routine traffic stop. It shouldn’t have changed the lives of the four men involved, but it did. The Onion Field is the frighteningly true story of a fatal collision of destinies that would lead two young cops and two young robbers to a deserted field on the outskirts of Los Angeles, towards a bizarre execution and its terrible aftermath.
The Onion Field is the basis for the movie starring James Woods and John Savage.
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Burned Alive
- A Shocking True Story of Betrayal, Kidnapping, and Murder
- By: Kieran Crowley
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Beautiful, bubbly, 20-year-old Kim Antonakos was returning to her New York City apartment after a night of clubbing with a friend. A business major with wild black hair, long polished fingernails, and a new Honda her loving father had bought her, Kim took good care of herself and looked forward to a bright future. But on her way home in the early morning darkness of that Ash Wednesday, Kim was abducted - and her mysterious kidnappers would be the last people to see her alive. Kim's father, wealthy computer executive Tommy Antonakos, launched a widespread search for his daughter.
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Well written..Great narrator...Sad, sad story
- By JBT3 on 02-01-19
By: Kieran Crowley
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The Hidden Man
- By: David Ellis
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot summer night in 1980, two-year-old Audrey Culter was snatched from her bedroom and never seen again. Twenty-six years later, her brother, Sammy, fatefully crosses paths with the man the police failed to convict for her abduction and murder. A few weeks later, that man is dead, murdered. Private attorney Jason Kolarich is engaged to defend Audrey's brother. But can he trust the people who hired him?
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Story not bad, Didn't like the reader
- By Kristin on 12-21-09
By: David Ellis
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To Speak for the Dead
- Jake Lassiter Legal Thrillers, Book 1
- By: Paul Levine
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Defending a surgeon in a malpractice case, Jake Lassiter begins to suspect that his client is innocent of negligence...but guilty of murder. Add a sexy widow, a deadly drug, and a grave robbery to the stew, and you have Miami's trial of the century.
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Jake Lassiter is not your typical hero...
- By shelley on 03-30-17
By: Paul Levine
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Wasted
- Inside the Robert Chambers-Jennifer Levin Murder
- By: Linda Wolfe
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On an August night in 1986, Jennifer Levin left a Manhattan bar with Robert Chambers. The next morning, her strangled, battered body was found in Central Park. Linda Wolfe goes beyond the headlines and media hype to recreate a story of a teenager whose immigrant mother was determined to make a better life for her son, a petty thief and drug user who'd been expelled from the best schools. Wasted powerfully depicts the freewheeling 1980s society that spawned a generation steeped in violence and the fatal impulses that drove Robert Chambers to kill.
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A very thorough reporting for the time
- By Amazon Customer on 12-28-16
By: Linda Wolfe
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Hard Rain Falling
- By: Don Carpenter
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary connement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class - married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But they will meet again....
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A Well Read, American Noir Novel from The 1960s
- By Frank Donnelly on 01-19-20
By: Don Carpenter
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The Birthday Party
- A Memoir of Survival
- By: Stanley N. Alpert
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 21, 1998, the night before his 38th birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped by a car full of gun-toting thugs. Hoping to make a large withdrawal with his ATM card, they took him, blindfolded, to a Brooklyn apartment, and improvised. All night, his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and even offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present."
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Since there haven't been any SERIOUS...
- By Douglas on 04-30-15
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Definitely Funny, Probably Offensive
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Excellent
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Really bad
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Hollywood Hell
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This is a Hollywood Station novel.
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The Executioner's Song
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Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in audio. Arguably the greatest book from America's most heroically ambitious writer, The Executioner's Song follows the short, blighted life of Gary Gilmore who became famous after he robbed two men in 1976 and killed them in cold blood. After being tried and convicted, he immediately insisted on being executed for his crime. To do so, he fought a system that seemed intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.
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Pulitzer-winner spoiled by numskulled narration
- By W Perry Hall on 05-21-18
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The Choirboys
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Partners in the Los Angeles Police Department, they’re haunted by terrifying dark secrets of the nightwatch - shared predawn drink and sex sessions they call choir practice. Each wears his cynicism like a bulletproof jockstrap - each has his horror story, his bad dream, his night shriek. He is afraid of his friends–he is afraid of himself.
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Definitely Funny, Probably Offensive
- By John Strange on 12-18-14
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Hollywood Station
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They call him the Oracle. He's got 46 years under his belt and more hash marks than a football field. More importantly, he has a crew of cops to look out for on the streets of Hollywood. From his understaffed office at Hollywood Station, he keeps a close eye on his squad who spend their day in patrol cars, and their nights in the underbelly of a city that never sleeps.
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Excellent
- By wsoxfan2005 on 12-16-06
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The Black Marble
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He is a damned good cop -- a burned-out homicide detective wrapped around a Smith & Wesson .38 and a vodka bottle. She is his partner -- twice divorced, nursing a grudge against men, obsessed by the awful temptation of love.
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Really bad
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Pulitzer-winner spoiled by numskulled narration
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Finnegan's Week
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Best story
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One year ago, Captain Jake Mahegan led a Delta Force team into Afghanistan to capture an American traitor working for the Taliban. The mission ended in tragedy. The team was infiltrated and decimated by a bomb. An enemy prisoner was killed. Mahegan was dismissed from service - dishonored forever.
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Smart/Sophisticated
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The Marshalls were the model family of Tom’s River, New Jersey, living the American dream and seemingly in possession of all that money could buy. Rob Marshall, a successful insurance broker, was the big breadwinner, king of the country-club set. Maria Marshall was his stunningly beautiful wife and the perfect mom to their three great kids.Then one night, while the couple drove home from Atlantic City, Rob, his head bloodied, reported Maria had been brutally slain. Sympathy poured in - until disquieting facts began to surface....
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Great listen
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Harlot's Ghost
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With unprecedented scope and consummate skill, Norman Mailer unfolds a rich and riveting epic of an American spy. Harry Hubbard is the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his society - and his own past - takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the "momentous catastrophe" of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy.
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Timely & Terrific
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On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
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Great naration
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What if you had carte blanche to fight evil? Nothing held back, nothing off the table. What would you do? For decades, the world has been fighting the drug cartels, and losing, their billions of dollars making them the most powerful and destructive organizations on earth. Until one man is asked to take charge. Paul Devereaux used to run Special Operations for the CIA before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now he can have anything he requires, do anything he thinks necessary. No boundaries, no rules, no questions asked.
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Another Good Read by Forsyth
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In the most extraordinary journey Ann Rule has ever undertaken, America's master of true crime has spent more than two decades researching the story of the Green River Killer, who murdered more than 49 young women. Green River, Running Red is a harrowing account of a modern monster, a killer who walked among us undetected. It is also the story of his quarry -- of who these young women were and who they might have become.
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Suspenseful and chilling
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Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.
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John Buffalo Mailer narrates his father's book
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Violet knows that time is a futile healer. When she thinks of her happily married grandfather—a predator lovingly referred to as Papa—the feelings of rage and betrayal still swell. Her younger sister, Lily, just discovered the numbing truth about him. Their mother, Rose? She can’t believe it. Not Papa. Leave it alone, Violet. Focus on the now.
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Nothing like the blurb
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American Tabloid
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We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination - in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, DC....
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Riding a shotgun to history
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What listeners say about The Onion Field
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- PAUL
- 03-20-15
GREAT READ....
I HAD NEVER HAD THE OCCASION TO READ THE BOOK BUT ONCE I STARTED IT WAS ONE YOU DON'T WANT TO PUT DOWN....THE DETAIL THAT WAMBAUGH GIVES ABOUT THE CHARACTERS IS OUTSTANDING...I SAW THE MOVIE(LONG AGO AND HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT) AND IT WAS OKAY BUT AS ALWAYS...YA JUST CAN'T BEAT THE ORIGINAL...GREAT READ.....I WALK A GREAT DEAL EVERY DAY AND IT IS A PERFECT TIME TO LISTEN TO A BOOK.....ONION FIELD MADE THE MILES FLY BY......HOORAY FOR THE BOOK AND THE EXTRA WALKING....
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- IndyMcDuff
- 05-17-16
Heartbreaking.
The police are not supposed to surrender their weapons under any circumstances. Easier said than done. I think the author has done an excellent job in showing that.
Jimmy Buffett has an album or a song "You Had To Be There" ... and boy, we all know that there are times and instances in our lives that we cannot fully explain because...you had to be there.
I do not understand the mentality of so many of their fellow officers not being able to put themselves in the shoes of these two officers and trying to imagine an unimaginable set of circumstances that would force the officers to do what they did. Are they just supposed to die rather than surrender their weapons? The situation was impossible.
My heart goes out to the good cops everywhere. The good ones.
This is an old book, but I think you can see how this one incident ruined lives, ruined by punks. To my mind, the surviving officer was not truly cop material, but was a good man nonetheless. It is well worth the listen just to get a bit of a handle on what cops face from both the criminals and the law-enforcement world.
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- Mark McQueen
- 09-15-19
Classic LA Noir Crime Novel
A great novel, recounting a tragic story of wrong place at the wrong time. The book may dive a little too much into the background of the stories characters which many times felt out of place initially until the narrative catches back up to the point of the characters role in the story. One thing this narrative does is shed light on the frustrations of modern police at the point at which a policeman work finds it way into the courts where not just every action of an investigator's is scrutinized but also insight how to a criminals fortunes can change once successfully tried and convicted.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-15-20
Just excellent. I feel like I know the people!
Joseph Wambaugh hit a home run! The characters are like friends to me! And to you too!
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- Richard Anthony
- 06-04-22
A great job on a sad story.
This true story will take you up, make you laugh, and slam you back down. What happened in that onion field was terrible but what happened in the judicial system in the years to follow was almost as hard to stomach.
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- Deacon Blues
- 07-09-22
Best book in a long time
Really superior quality writing and a very interesting story.
I will be reading more books by Joseph Wambaugh.
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- Barbara Vincent
- 03-13-23
A Timeless Story of Humanity and Inhumanity
This book was published when I was in high school. I never considered reading any of Joseph Wambaugh's books, because I thought they would only interest macho men. I assumed his books were all "Rah rah thin blue line!" Well, I don't know about the rest of his books, but this one was not that and told a story that was complex beyond anything I'd imagined.
Though there are traces of misogyny and homophobia in the story, no doubt artifacts both of the time it was written and of the time when the true story took place, the book holds up well in terms of modern standards of fairness and justice.
I liked how the criminals' stories were told with much detail and sympathy, allowing the reader to come to his or her own conclusions about them as the story played out. In fact, I thought the initial scenes with the cops portrayed them as almost indistinguishable one from the other, though we get to know much more about both of them as time goes on.
One of the most impressive aspects of the book is the portrayal of Karl Hettinger's traumatized reaction to the events in the onion field. The narrator doesn't exactly indict the cops who ostracized him, but the story is told so evenhandedly that there is plenty of room for the reader to reflect on the justice or injustice of what happened to him.
On a lighter note, I was delighted every time Mrs. Bobbick made an appearance. The difference between her account of what went on in the jury room vs the story the other jurors told made me roar with laughter.
An excellent listen. A book that has withstood the test of time.
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- Avalon
- 03-03-13
Haunting
This true story is of a murder that shocked the City of Angels, and became the impetus for dramatic change in police procedure, both in potential hostage situations, and, much later, in recognizing and understanding emotional trauma, PTSD, and survivor's guilt.
The characters are depicted with precision. I feel like I know them, or knew them, as the last of the four recently died (2012). Wambaugh is a master, a former policeman who writes with sensitive eloquence, an understanding of the people and places that makes his work leap off the page and seize your senses.
I first read this book many years ago and have never been free of its spell. The audiobook is even better. The memorable individuals, immortalized in this, Wambaugh's best work, continue to puzzle and fascinate. The onion field is very near what is now Interstate 5 in California's San Joaquin valley, just over the Grapevine from LA. I travel this road frequently, and never pass it without a nod and a prayer for the victims, the fateful events so hauntingly penned here, and the loss of innocence that touched so many people. Thank you, Joseph Wambaugh, for this historical treasure.
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37 people found this helpful
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- GK
- 11-18-13
Sublime narration from a well written book
Any additional comments?
This is my favorite true crime book. Joseph Wambaugh brings three dimensional personalities to these real life characters, without judging them; That is left up to the reader/listener. A mixture of comedy within this awful tragedy. Jonathan Davis is a superb narrator for this particular book. If you have seen the film (a must if not) Mr. Davis skillfully captures a fine interpretation of the actor's voices...especially James Wood.
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- KismetKat11
- 03-01-15
Still fascinating after all these years
This incident happened before I was born, but my Dad was always a reader of Joseph Wambaugh so I thought I'd check it out. It's very well done, without sensationalism or exploitation. Spoiler Alert*** It was haunting to hear the impact of the crime on the surviving officer and so frustrating that LAPD did nothing to help him in the aftermath. It was a different time. Also, it gave interesting insight into why retrials happen, why these types of cases just go on and on in the courts. But it did so without becoming dry or detailed. It was really well done and I'm interested in reading more Wambaugh books. I think I'll check out "The Blooding" next.
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13 people found this helpful