Showing results by narrator "Nick Sullivan" in All Categories

Cody Hatcher is the kind of teenager you don't want your kids hanging out with. That's the book on him, and it's why the citizens of Mineral Springs have no problem at all believing that he's guilty of three rapes. His mother, Cheryl, an old lover of Nameless, is being harassed by vindictive townspeople. It's against such odds that Nameless must work to prove Cody innocent. There are few to help him and plenty to get in his way. It's a classic situation for an iconic private investigator.

Unforgettable protagonist BuckSchatz is back, and once again this 88-year-old retired Memphis cop refuses to go gently into that good night. Having sustained injuries in Don't Ever Get Old, Buck is living at a retirement home with his wife, and he's downright miserable being treated like the elderly person he is. But soon, Elijah, a man from his past, pays Buck a visit. Elijah offers Buck a tidy sum to do him a favor, and Buck is eager to close the book on a series of robberies that he could never solve. But things soon go downhill - way downhill.

These interconnected stories are set in an opulent quasi-historical world of magick and high manners called the Republic of Califa. The Republic is a strangely familiar place - a baroque approximation of Gold Rush era-California with an overlay of Aztec ceremony - yet the characters who populate it are true originals: rockstar magicians, murderous gloves, bouncing boy terrors, blue tinted butlers, sentient squids, and a three-year-old Little Tiny Doom and her vengeful pink plush pig.

Nashville private detective Jared McKean has spent most of his 36 years trying to live up to the memory of the father he barely knew. One day, the body of a young Vietnamese woman is found in Jared's office dumpster clutching a yellowed photo of Jared's father. A few days later, another Vietnamese woman, Khanh, appears on Jared's doorstep claiming to be his half-sister and begging him to help find her missing daughter, Tuyet.

For "Darwin Year," a fresh-eyed and enchanting journey through South America in his footsteps. One snowy day in Ushuaia, Argentina, the self-proclaimed "southernmost city in the world," writer Eric Simons picked up a copy of Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Simons had just hiked the mountains overlooking Beagle Channel, and he found himself engrossed in Darwin's account.

In the days when hunger could be cultivated and practiced as an art form, the individuals who practiced it were often put on show for all to see. One man who was so devout in his pursuit of hunger pushed against the boundaries set by the circus that housed him and strived to go longer than 40 days without food. As interest in his art began to fade, he pushed the boundaries even further. In this short story about one man's plight to prove his worth, Franz Kafka illustrates the themes of self-hatred, dedication, and spiritual yearning.

In the final days of World War II, the Allies ransacked Berlin, but they failed to capture one of the most vital members of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. SS Obergruppenfuhrer Hans Kammler helped to engineer Auschwitz, but he was also a liaison with silent partners whose technological wonders nearly helped the Nazis win the war - the alien species the Germans called the Eidechse. More than seven decades later, US Navy SEAL Mark Hunter has witnessed the impossible, an unidentified flying object destroying a North Korean compound used to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Nameless had told Mitchell Krochek he'd do whatever he could to find his missing wife, Janice. She'd run away before - propelled by a gambling fever that grew ever higher - and Mitch had always taken her back. This time, when Nameless, his partner, Tamara, and the agency's chief operative, Jake Runyon, finally found her in a sleazy San Francisco hotel, she demanded a divorce. A few days later, a beaten and bloody Janice stumbled into the agency begging to go home. No one is surprised when, soon after her homecoming, she disappears again.

Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren't all heroes. Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He's a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything -or anyone - could be the fuse to ignite them.

The passage of Halley’s Comet in 1759 is catastrophic. The comet appears to strike the Earth, sundering the New World from the Old. A chain of mountains rises in the Mid-Atlantic. No ship from the Old World arrives in America. No ship from the New World can find a passage to the Old - and most who try simply disappear. The comet has also unleashed magic forces, which soon spread everywhere.

The Saurians have an agenda: dominance over Earth. Operating from the shadows, they plant conspiracy theories and instil fear among the human population. Too weak in numbers to militarily conquer a world they believe to be their own, they seek to revive Nazi ideologies to gain absolute control. With his species in danger, Commander Mark Hunter and his Joint Space Strike Team must join forces with time travelers and government psychics if they stand a chance at saving their planet.

As Benjamin Franklin pursues his famous scientific and political work, he uncovers a world-changing magical plot he must thwart to save the lives of those around him. The only problem with that is that he didn't even believe magic was real until an accident with his kite experiment unlocked the ability in him. The ever-inquisitive Franklin races to decipher the rules of this mystical force and learn to control it while maneuvering through the politics and intrigue of the Royal Court in London.

At the end of their freshman year, Chance Fortune and the Outlaws saved the universe. Though he lacks a superpower, 15-year-old Chance used his natural athleticism and quick wits to form his team into an effective fighting force. The Outlaws have learned to trust and rely upon one another. As the bonds of their friendship strengthen, Chance finds it more difficult than ever to conceal his true identity. When an apparent teleportation malfunction strands the team in the Shadow Zone, the Outlaws are put to the test.

SFWA Grand Master James Gunn's This Fortress World takes place in the far future of our galaxy, when countless civilizations have risen and fallen, leaving only their marvelous scientific achievements as legacy to those worlds that have now fallen into a new Dark Age. On the planet Brancusi, William Dane, an acolyte monk in the all-powerful Church, comes into possession of a nasty but valuable secret, one that all the cutthroats in the galaxy are itching to get their hands on.

Nameless wasn't supposed to come into the office on Mondays; he wasn't supposed to answer the phone. On this Monday, he did both. The call was from Barney Rivera - once a friend, now despised - at Great Western Insurance. Against his better judgment, Nameless agreed to meet with him.

The investigation was relatively simple: a multimillionaire rare books collector had reported the theft of eight volumes, worth a half million dollars. From a locked library. To which he has the only key.

So what if Nameless can't get his girlfriend, Kerry, to marry him? So what if he can't talk his partner, Eberhardt, out of his bitter funk? Skies are sunny, and the Nameless Detective wants them to stay that way. So he decides to do an old man a favor and find his missing granddaughter, Gianna. But no one said it would be easy. It seems Gianna's roommate is turning tricks, and Nameless' search quickly leads him to a pimp, a murder, and into a dark pit of human perversion.

For as long as he can remember, 14-year-old Joshua Blevins has wanted to be a superhero. He has the brains, the passion, and the heart. There's only one problem: he doesn't have any superpowers. But Josh isn't about to let that stop him.

Big, sort-of-sloppy, brew-loving P.I. opens up his files on some of his most fascinating cases. Here are 10 stories and two novelettes, giving Nameless fans a page-turning potpourri of his toughest and most dangerous adventures. Case File is a 12-pack to be popped open and enjoyed on an off-duty afternoon. So sit back and spend some time with one of America's favorite P.I.'s who has caught more criminals - an imaginations - than any other gumshoe in recent American fiction.

Life - personally and professionally - is lived to the fullest as a mosaic, encompassing a rich and complex set of diverse experiences that provide purpose, meaning, happiness, and success. Yet, the pressures of modern society push us toward narrower focus and deeper specialization in our lives and careers. Our pursuit of specific expertise risks us becoming isolated from those different from us; our lack of shared experience fosters suspicion and conflict.

Few characters have the loyal readership of Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective." The 14 stories in this collection span his entire 35-year life on the printed page. They include "It's a Lousy World," where Nameless proves that a friend did not commit the crime he was accused of; "Dead Man's Slough" and "The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch," which take him out of San Francisco into the hinterlands; and "Souls Burning," where he tries to help an old friend make one last try at setting things right.