Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion" - a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik - is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
Waldo O. Berry III says:
"A smashin good read and an excellent performance"
Accomplished storyteller Nevada Barr captivates fans with her tightly-woven plots, vibrant descriptions, and believable characters. In this thrilling mystery, her resourceful sleuth, middle-aged park ranger Anna Pigeon, travels to northern California where she joins the forces battling an out-of-control forest fire.
For Kerry Murphy, the inferno is never far away. The flames of that long-ago night still burn in her nightmares: the heat, the choking smoke, the helplessness. She can never run fast enough. Now a gifted arson investigator haunted by her mother's death in a fire, Murphy teams up with a mysterious operative Silver to stop a psychopath determined to set the world on fire. She soon discovers that to catch him, she must use her secret weapon, a prospect that terrifies her more than anything.
The genie is out of the bottle. Rogue Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is racing to New York to warn her former colleagues of the impending apocalypse. An ancient agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens has been broken, and the furious Djinn, slaves to the Wardens for millennia, are now free of mortal control.
The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself
UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 22 mins)
By Philip L. Fradkin
Narrated By Arthur Morey
Overall
(5)
Performance
(5)
Story
(5)
The first indication of the prolonged terror that followed the 1906 earthquake occurred when a ship steaming off San Francisco's Golden Gate "seemed to jump clear out of the water." This gripping account of the earthquake, the devastating firestorms that followed, and the city's subsequent reconstruction vividly shows how, after the shaking stopped, humans, not the forces of nature, nearly destroyed San Francisco in a remarkable display of simple ineptitude and power politics.
Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden
UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 1 min)
By Marshall De Bruhl
Narrated By Michael Prichard
Overall
(44)
Performance
(10)
Story
(8)
On February 13 and 14, 1945, three successive waves of British and U.S. aircraft rained down thousands of tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the largely undefended German city of Dresden. Night and day, Dresden was engulfed in a vast sea of flame, a firestorm that generated 1,500-degree temperatures and hurricane-force winds. Thousands suffocated in underground shelters where they had fled to escape the inferno above.
It's a typical night for high-school senior Jack Danielson. A star football player, he just broke the league rushing record, celebrated at the local diner, and got shot down (again) by his girlfriend. Jack feels he's having "the most normal senior year a guy could have" in "the most normal little town in America". He couldn't be more wrong.
As a smoke jumper, Reyne Oldre once led a team of courageous firefighters into a blaze that ended in unspeakable tragedy. Now, crippled by fear, she conducts fire research from a safe distance, determined not to risk that kind of pain again. But when the flames of love begin to flicker between her and smoke jumper Logan McCable, Reyne must face the fearsome storms from her past and battle the raging firestorm that burns her soul.
The genie is out of the bottle. Rogue Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is racing to New York to warn her former colleagues of the impending apocalypse. An ancient agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens has been broken, and the furious Djinn, slaves to the Wardens for millennia, are now free of mortal control.
For Kerry Murphy, the inferno is never far away. The flames of that long-ago night still burn in her nightmares: the heat, the choking smoke, the helplessness. Now Kerry works as an arson investigator with her evidence-sniffing dog, Sam. Together they're a great team, but only Kerry knows the real reason why they're so good at what they do; only Kerry and someone from a past she thought she'd put far behind her.