Showing results by narrator "Paul Michael" in All Categories

In the fall of 1940, the Nazis are at the height of their power—France is occupied, Britain is enduring the Blitz and is under threat of invasion, America is neutral, and Russia is in an uneasy alliance with Germany. Stephen Metcalfe, the younger son of a prominent American family, is a well-known man about town in occupied Paris. He’s also a minor asset in the U.S.’s secret intelligence forces in Europe....

Meet Michael Seeley, defender of artists' rights, take-no-prisoners intellectual property litigator, and a man on the brink of personal and career collapse. So when United Pictures virtually demands that he fly out to Hollywood to confirm legally that they own the rights to their corporate cash-cow franchise of Spykiller films, he has little choice but to comply.

When two women linked with charismatic late-night TV personality Marshall Fox are found brutally slain in Central Park, Fox becomes the prime suspect and is charged with the murders. At the tabloid trial, one of Fox’s ex-lovers, Robin Burrell, is called to testify - and is instantly thrust into the media’s harsh spotlight. Shaken by a subsequent onslaught of hate mail, Robin goes to Fritz Malone for help. Malone has barely begun to investigate when Robin is found sadistically murdered in her Upper West Side brownstone.

The Emperor’s New Clothes and Other Stories brings together more of Geoffrey Thomas’s short stories, each brimming with the bigheartedness, warmth and homespun humour that he is known for. From historic Europe to the Asian continent, Geoffrey Thomas introduces a series of curious characters in his mesmerising collection based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales: a golden swan flies around the world; an old poet has a mysterious visitor; an Emperor is fooled by his ambition.

A child of World War II, Peter Debauer grew up with his mother and scant memories of his father, a victim of war. Now an adult, Peter embarks upon a search for the truth surrounding his mother's unwavering - but shaky - history and the possibility of finding his missing father after all these years. The search takes him across Europe, to the United States, and back.

Understood to be a commentary on human nature, consumerism, idealism, prejudice, and American society overall, this novel has become one of the most widely known and read pieces of literature. Thrown in the midst of the age of roaring twenties, tempted by the American dream, luxury, and romance, narrator Nick Carraway joins the elusive and extraordinary Jay Gatsby as the latter continues his dramatic pursuit of his longtime love interest, Daisy Buchanan.

Vila is scared. Of course he is. Vila is always scared. He should feel safe. He is onboard the Liberator, the most powerful ship ever constructed. He is home - but he is certainly not alone. Ghostly figures stalk the corridors of the Liberator. Spectres who know Vila's name. Revenants. Demons. And Vila has nowhere to run.

When Travis scores a victory over the Liberator crew, Blake is willing to risk everything in order to get back what is theirs. The destination is the uninhabited ice world Horst Minor, where eugenics specialist Dr. Tirus is working on experiments for the Federation president. Horst Minor has many secrets. And Blake is not going to like what he finds there.

The assistance of the Liberator crew is urgently needed on Straxis - but Roj Blake has acute problems of his own.... After taking drastic emergency measures, Blake, Vila and Cally teleport back into a war zone in a bid to make new allies. But the Federation is testing advanced new weaponry here. And Vila looks set to be an early target.

A singularly effervescent novel pivoting around the disappearance of an American businessman in the Philippines and the long-suffering son, jilted lover, slick police commissioner, misguided villain, and supernatural saviors who all want a piece of him.

Nolan Jackson is a journeyman carpenter by trade and a wanderer by nature. And in 2007, while fellow Americans fight in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Nolan roams, traveling between jobs building tract homes across the West. Following a shocking workplace accident in Las Vegas, he uproots himself from the tentative relationships he has made and heads toward the ocean.

Jefferson Burke and the Secret of the Lost Scroll is a mystery as old as the Christian church wrapped in a modern-day thriller. Though an unwilling hero, professor Jefferson Burke's intellectual curiosity pits him against the powerful Bruno Krueger in a race to find a 2,000-year-old scroll that calls into question the divinity of Christ and could shake the foundation of Christian faith, upsetting the balance of power in the modern world.

Seven years have passed since Driver ended his campaign against those who double-crossed him. He has left the old life, become Paul West, and founded a successful business. But walking down the street one day, he and his fiancée are attacked by two men, and his fiancée is killed. Sinking back into anonymity, Driver realises that his past stalks him - and will not stop. He has to turn and face it.

In Patrick Dacey's stunning debut, we meet longtime neighbors and friends - citizens of working-class Wequaquet - right when the ground beneath their feet has shifted in ways they don't yet understand. Here, after more than a decade of boom and bust, love and pride are closely twinned and dangerously deployed: A lonely woman attacks a memorial to a neighbor's veteran son; a dissatisfied housewife goes overboard with cosmetic surgery on national television.

When Del Tarrant joined the Liberator, he thought he'd left his past behind him - the gallant Federation officer with friends in high places. But the past has a habit of catching up to you. A man the Liberator crew thought dead crosses their path, now a fugitive on the run. He brings talk of an alliance, of a brave new future - but is Avon prepared to make a deal with the devil?

A stylish piece of noir fiction; now a major film starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. Drive is about a man who does stunt driving for movies by day and drives for criminals at night. Sallis combines murder, treachery, and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near-existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

Orac has tracked Space Major Kade - the man who killed Jenna’s father - to the planet Vere. Jenna wants her revenge, but that must wait. Blake needs her to pilot the Liberator to Stellidar Four, where he has a small window of opportunity to solve the mystery of a new Federation device. It’s a daring plan. And it could be the beginning of the end for the Liberator crew.

In 1920s Munich, the body of Anna Gross, a young society wife, has been found in the English Gardens, still clothed in finery. Soon a second body is discovered, also a woman of high society. When a third body is found, homicide detective Axel Berg realizes he's dealing with unprecedented evil. Is the murderer politically motivated? Is he a lone madman? Or worse, is the killer possessed by both political and personal demons?

A commentary on guilt, material wealth, community, religion, and more, this novel is a thought provoking yet heartwarming tale. Banished from his church after being falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner becomes a bitter hermit consumed only by the wealth and goods he has been able to attain in exile. After losing everything he loved from his past, he clings now to the materials he has gained since. However, he must suffer through losing those too and instead gain the love of an innocent orphan to find the redemption he didn’t know he needed.

This story is excerpted from The Pied Piper of Hamelin: And Other Tales by Geoffrey Thomas. These short stories are brimming with the big-heartedness, warmth, and homespun humor that the author is known for. Geoffrey Thomas introduces incredible characters in this captivating tale based on the famous story by the Brothers Grimm.