Showing results by narrator "Robert Fass" in All Categories

An oral-history biography of the legendary Latin American writer and Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Márquez, brimming with atmosphere and insight.

For almost three years, novelist and short-story writer Lawrence Block's monthly column, "Generally Speaking," was one of the most popular features in Linn's Stamp News. A general collector of pre-1940 issues, Block had the entire world of stamps as his subject, and he turned in 33 columns before he decided it was time to stop. But Keller, the author's fictional character, never lost his enthusiasm for philately. A wistful and introspective killer for hire, Keller rekindled a boyhood passion for stamps at the end of Hit Man, the first of a series of books about him.

One day Arthur Friedland piles his three sons into the car and drives them to see the Great Lindemann, Master of Hypnosis. Protesting that he doesn't believe in magic even as he is led onto the stage, Arthur nevertheless experiences something. Later that night, while his family sleeps, he takes his passport, empties all the money from his bank account, and vanishes. In time, still absent from his family, he begins to publish novels and becomes an internationally renowned author.

When the celebrated Russian-born architect Roman Guttman is injured in a bus bombing, his perceptions become heightened and disturbed, leading him on an ill-advised journey into Palestinian territory. His odyssey alternates with the bittersweet diary of his teenage daughter Anyusha - on her own perilous path - and the startlingly alive observations of Amir, the young Palestinian who pushed the button and is now damned to watch the havoc he has wrought from a shaky beyond.

Adam Gorozpe, a respected businessman in Mexico, has a life so perfect that he might as well be his namesake in the Garden of Eden - but there are snakes in this Eden too. For one thing, Adam's wife, Priscila, has fallen in love with the brash director of national security - also named Adam. Another unlikely snake is the little Boy-God who's started preaching in the street wearing a white tunic and stick-on wings, inspiring Adam's brother-in-law to give up his job to follow this junior deity and implore Adam to do the same.

"Vlad" is Vlad the Impaler, of course, whose mythic cruelty was an inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. In this sly sequel, Vlad really is undead. More than a postmodern riff on 'the vampire craze,' Vlad is also an anatomy of the Mexican bourgeoisie, as well as our culture's ways of dealing with death. For - as in Dracula - Vlad has need of both a lawyer and a real-estate agent in order to establish his new kingdom, and Yves Navarro and his wife Asuncion fit the bill nicely. Having recently lost a son, might they not welcome the chance to see their remaining child live forever?

The banners waved, the crowd cheered, the reporters rushed toward the candidate as he made his way to the speaker's platform. And then a shot rang out. The candidate clutched at his chest, screamed, and fell dead. It was a pretty kettle of fish for Tim Corrigan, the crime solver with the eye patch and the stainless-steel nervous system. The suspects included the candidate's voluptuous widow, his handsome bodyguard, and a breathtaking young thing with every reason to want the candidate dead.

It coulda been worse. That's the "working epitaph" of 15-year-old Moon Landing. Not that Moon's death is imminent--far from it--but his thoughts have turned to gallows humor, as his world disintegrates along with his parents' marriage. His older brother skateboards through life with ease, but Moon is deeply troubled. Just as he is solving for romantic unknowns with a gorgeous older girl, Moon must contend with his dad's sudden absence, his mom-gone-wild's sexcapades, and his best friends' curious penchant for self-destruction. Not to mention his newfound role in agitating to end an African guerrilla's bloody rampage. To make sense of it all, Moon embarks on a quest to unravel the riddle of God's injustice to man.

In The Ape's Wife and Other Stories - Kiernan's 12th collection of short fiction since 2001 - she displays the impressive range that characterizes her work. With her usual disregard for genre boundaries, she masterfully navigates the territories that have traditionally been labeled dark fantasy, sword and sorcery, science fiction, steampunk, and neo-noir.

Who are you, Malone? Just a little while ago you were a cop. That was before the two punks and their girl hit town. That was before they boosted a payroll and shot down a man and took your nine-year-old daughter as insurance to cover their getaway. Now you’re just a man. Scared. Not for yourself - that would be easy. But for your child, the only thing in the world you love enough to make you play ball with the kind of scum you’ve hated all your life.

John Vallancourt, the cool, calm diplomat, is worried stiff. A dear friend is dead and his daughter Nancy is missing. John fears the worst – and the worst is Nancy's sweetheart Keith Rollins. Keith is the prime suspect in the case and he is running scared, dragging Nancy into danger with him. If Keith is a murderer, John is certain of one thing: He has to catch Keith before the cops do, or he might find himself with one very dead daughter!

With more than 350,000 copies sold, the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Election has taken its place as the defining document of the Trump administration. Replete with some of the most infamous characters and outlandish schemes in modern American history, the underlying evidence in the Special Counsel's written testimony could have been plucked from the script of a blockbuster movie.

On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: A woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer. On a September evening eleven years earlier, two seventeen-year-old girls vanished from the village without a trace.

Sometimes it is the people we think we know the best who surprise us the most. London, 1986: Klaudia is about to start high school. She's embarrassed by her German father - he's the janitor at her school; he has a funny accent and a limp. And when the kids at school taunt her by saying he was a Nazi during the war, she can't dispute them with confidence. She's never known exactly what he may or may not have done during the war.

All his life, Giovanni Bernini has possessed an uncanny gift: He can imitate anyone he meets. Honed by his mother at a young age, the talent catapults him from small-town obscurity to stardom. As Giovanni describes it, "No one's disguise is perfect. There is in every person, no matter how graceful, a seam, a thread curling out of them... When pulled by the right hands, it will unravel the person entire."

In a small town in the American South, it is night in the middle of the 20th century. Carter, a high-school teacher and football coach in the newly desegregated schools, is awaiting news of two of his students who have been in a serious altercation. Outside the building where Carter has kept his vigil, a crowd of townspeople have also gathered to keep watch. Carter must choose how much he wants to participate in the spectacle and how much he can afford to keep his distance.

Many authors have traveled and explored the out-of-doors, both in life and then in their books, proving themselves stalwart, audacious, even heroic; Andrew Farkas is not among them. He is brave enough to admit that the outdoors isn’t for him. Instead, in these essays Farkas reports on his bold explorations of a very different territory: the in-of-doors, the waiting rooms, kitchens, malls, bars, theaters, roadside motel rooms, and other places that feature temperature control, protection from rampaging predators, and a higher degree of comfort than can be found outside.

When Margaret's fiancé, John, is hospitalized for depression, she faces a choice: carry on with their plans or leave. She decides to marry him. This is the story of what unfolds from this act of love and faith, when their three children help their mother to care for Michael. Told in alternating points of view by all five members of the family, this searing, gut-wrenching and yet frequently hilarious novel brings alive with remarkable poignancy the depth of family love.

A piercing and compassionate debut novel about how the new generations atone for the sins of the old in small-town America.

Malcolm Dowd is almost positive he recognizes the freshman who shows up for a session at his office in Baxter College’s Center for Behavioral Health - he just can’t place her. When suddenly she stands, takes off her wig, and reveals herself as Noah, the young man Malcolm had been treating months earlier, it marks the start of a relationship that will change them both. After losing his wife at a young age, Malcolm dedicated himself to giving his two daughters the stable, predictable childhood he never had. But now, nothing is predictable.