Showing results by narrator "Bronson Pinchot" in All Categories

Their ambitious TV-movie needs to be made fast and cheap, but a brutal murder grinds production to a halt. An approaching forest fire forces everyone to evacuate. In the confusion not everyone gets out. Eddie is the alcoholic director, Sheila the vulnerable camera assistant, Tom the self-centered actor, and Sondra the spurned sheriff's deputy. Death comes sudden and silent. The camouflaged killer's weapon of choice is a high-tech hunting bow. The mysterious assassin has an agenda.

It is the autumn of 1999. A year has passed since Lucy Darby’s unexpected death, leaving her husband David and son Whitley to mend the gaping hole in their lives. David, a trauma-site cleanup technician, spends his nights expunging the grisly remains of strangers, helping their families move on, though he is unable to do the same. Whitley—an eleven-year-old social pariah known simply as the Kid—hasn’t spoken since his mother’s death.

Bennett "Benito" Lang is a young scientist who seeks solace in the precise and irrefutable laws of physics, only to find he cannot escape his own humanity. But he is about to discover love, betrayal, and a whole spectrum of mortal phenomena. Soon, he will be forced to face the unpredictable everyday reality he evades - and to learn from it. 

These five classic mysteries offer chilling darkness, drama, and intrigue. Includes: "Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe; "Silver Blaze" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; "The Secret of the Growing Gold" by Bram Stoker; "The Honour of Israel Gow" by G. K. Chesterton; and "The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens.

In The Player, the Hollywood classic that was adapted into the celebrated movie by Robert Altman, film executive Griffin Mill got away with murder. Now Mill is back, down to his last $6 million, and broke. His second wife wants to leave him. His first wife still loves him. His children hate him, and, believing that the end of the world is happening, he wants to save them all with one last desperate plan to save his life: quit the studio and convince an almost billionaire that he has the road map and the mettle to make them both achieve savage wealth.

Written in the irreverent style that made How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read a critical and commercial success, Pierre Bayard takes listeners on a trip around the world, giving us essential guidance on how to talk about all those fantastic places we've never been. Practical, funny, and thought provoking, How to Talk About Places You've Never Been will delight and inform armchair globetrotters and jet-setters, all while never having to leave the comfort of the living room.

Back in the Eighties, Mickey DeFalco was America's teenage heartthrob with spiky gelled hair, slanted sideburns, and a number-one hit single - "Sweet Days" - a sappy love song he wrote after his high school sweetheart, Lynn Mahoney, broke his heart. Now approaching middle age, Mickey is lucky to land a singing gig at a bar mitzvah. So the one-hit wonder-boy is making a different kind of comeback - returning to his old stomping grounds in Queens, living with his parents, and sleeping in his childhood bed. Just like in high school.

Martin Harris returns home after a short absence to find that his wife doesn’t know him, another man is living in his house under his name, and the neighbors think he’s a raving lunatic. Worse, not a single person - family, colleague, or doctor - can vouch for him. Worse still, the impostor shares all of Martin’s memories, experiences, and knowledge, down to the last detail. He is, in fact, a more convincing Martin than Martin himself.

Kicked out of Yale at age 14, the precocious Judd Breslau takes a questionable job from the eccentric Phillips Chatterton, a bathrobe-wearing Egyptologist working out of a dilapidated home laboratory. There, he falls for young Valerie Chatterton, who quickly leads Breslau away from his research.

Eddie and the Gun Girl is the true story of the shooting of Philadelphia Phillies All-Star first baseman Eddie Waitkus by a deranged female admirer in 1949. While such incidents would become commonplace in ensuing years, as stars of every persuasion would surround themselves with bodyguards and live in increasing fear of unannounced assailants, the events of that June 14 at the elegant Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago were unprecedented.

There’s nothing better than taking your timid little cousin Thad to one of those sweet haunted houses the 4-H Club decorates for Halloween. Except, of course, if the house turns out to actually be haunted. A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Writers & Lovers established Lily King as one of our most beloved authors of contemporary fiction. Now, for the first time ever, King collects 10 of her finest short stories, opening fresh realms of discovery for avid and new listeners alike.

In 1924, hoping to cure his illness, Franz Kafka traveled to a sanatorium in Kierling, Austria, run by a Dr. Hugo Hoffman. He would spend his last days there. In Robert Cohen’s story, we see the end of Kafka’s life through Dr. Hoffman’s eyes. The doctor attempts to decipher the dying man’s enigmatic communications, scribbled on scraps of paper, while being harried by Kafka’s friend, Klopstock, and a young woman who has fallen in love with the then-unknown writer. As the case progresses, the once-practical and upstanding doctor gets pulled deeper and deeper into his strange patient's world.

Scott O'Connor's novels have been hailed as "astonishing" (Library Journal), and "so insistently stirring, you want to lean in close to catch every word" (New York Times Book Review). Now, from the author of Untouchable and Half World comes A Perfect Universe, a piercingly emotional cycle of stories in the tradition of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and Annie Proulx's Close Range. Welcome to the often-overlooked corners of sun-bleached Los Angeles, where a teenaged bicycle thief searches for a kidnapped boy, a young musician emerges as the lone survivor of a building collapse, and an aging actor faces the erasure of his past.

New York. 1977. Be there when it explodes. It’s New Year’s Eve, 1976, and New York is a city on the edge. As midnight approaches, a blizzard sets in - and amidst the fireworks, an unmistakable sound rings out across Central Park. Gunshots. Two of them. The search for the shooter will bring together a rich cast of New Yorkers. From the reluctant heirs to one of the city's greatest fortunes to a couple of Long Island kids drawn to the punk scene downtown.

Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and Guys Read, you already know what you’re in store for: an hilarious story.

In the near future, America is crumbling, bankrupt, and teetering on the edge of chaos. Following the Great Bailout, the multinational Lee-Pi corporation is the only institution that can hold the country together, providing basic services, security, and order. Leonard Cheung is Lee-Pi's most reliable field operative: a negotiator, assassin, and clean-up expert who does the behind-the-scenes dirty work to keep the corporation running.

Prince Liam. Prince Frederick. Prince Duncan and Prince Gustav…. The four princes that have the worst luck in the world. After saving the kingdom yet again and going their separate ways, the princes are back in trouble…and this time it's serious! Somehow, everyone thinks they have murdered a princess! And with bounty hunters after them, and a dastardly scheme sure to be behind it all, the princes have to overcome their differences, reunite, and clear their names.

Two fake psychics, one real haunted house - what could go wrong? A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Mister Rogers is one of the most beloved television personalities, but before he was the man who brought us Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was just little Freddie Rogers. Although he was often sick and had trouble making friends as a child, his mom and grandfather encouraged him to ask for help and explore the world. With their support, he learned how to better say what he was feeling and see the beauty around him. As he grew up, he realized he could spread the message of compassion, equality, and kindness through television.