Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Van Dyck" in All Categories

For Fish and Wildlife Agent Venus Diamond, it's the perfect day to investigate a murder. It's foggy and raining on the Olympic Peninsula, Venus's eccentric mother is having trouble with her adopted son Timmy, and her fiancé has just broken off their engagement - by email, no less. What better distraction from this sudden mayhem than a crime scene?

When Eve Duncan gave birth to her daughter, she experienced a love she never knew existed. Nothing would stand in the way of giving Bonnie a wonderful life - until the unthinkable happened and the seven-year-old vanished into thin air. Eve found herself in the throes of a nightmare from which there was no escape. But a new Eve emerged: a woman who would use her remarkable talent as a forensic sculptor to help others find closure in the face of tragedy. Now with the help of her beloved Joe Quinn and CIA agent Catherine Ling, Eve has come closer than ever to the truth.

A CIA agent’s two-year-old child was stolen in the night as a brutal act of vengeance. Nine years later, Catherine Ling’s instincts - maternal and professional - tell her that her son is still alive, but she needs the help of someone as driven and obsessed as she is to find him - and that person is Eve Duncan. Eve has walked this same path and shares Catherine’s nightmare, having endured the disappearance of her own daughter, Bonnie.

Caribbean-born novelist Tobias Buckell established himself as a gifted new voice in science fiction with his stunning first novel, Crystal Rain. Now, in his first collection, Buckell demonstrates his strengths in the short form, offering readers a collection of stories that are compelling, smart, wonderfully imagined, and entertaining. Tides from the New Worlds contains 19 stories that range from multicultural science fiction to magical realism, some in print for the first time.

Perfect strangers whose once-perfect lives were cruelly shattered, they're bound by a long-lost child, a fragile strand of newfound maternal hope and mutual loneliness. Yet Elsa and Marin are never truly alone. Someone is always nearby, watching them and their children. Someone driven by vengeance and the simple poetry of nursery rhymes.

While mapping the ancient underwater metropolis of Marinth, marine architect Hannah Bryson makes a shocking discovery: She may have finally uncovered the truth about the once-glorious city’s mysterious demise. Marinth’s sudden disappearance has confounded scientists for years, but now, with the revelation of a key artifact, Hannah realizes that the long-buried city’s explosive secret could have dire consequences for the modern-day world.

Vaun, born a peasant in the stinking mud flats of Ult, a thriving colony planet, claws his way to survival and fame by becoming the toughest young officer in the Space Patrol. A veteran of the brutal training academy, he seizes opportunities as they arise, leading the first ship out against a surprise attack by the mysterious Brotherhood. He returns to a hero's welcome as the Brotherhood ship falls to the surface of his home planet in shattered pieces.

Ozone Beach, Washington, where the clams dance and the chowder's poisoned: Timber queen Madge Leroux's body has washed up on frigid backwater Ozone Beach in Washington State, the last place on Earth Venus Diamond wants to visit. Recently returned from steamy, exotic adventures tracking poachers in East Asia, and hanging out in sophisticated nightclubs, Venus has brought home malaria fevers and a jaundice the shade of hot mustard.

Christmas is coming and all is far from calm in Pointe Judah, Louisiana. Newcomer Christian DeAngelo, "Angel" to his friends, is at his wit's end trying to manage Sonny, the hot-headed 19-year-old everyone believes is his nephew. In fact, Sonny is the orphaned son of a notorious mob boss, a protected witness...and Angel's responsibility.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

The Dunnes have set off on a 10 day boat trip, a trip that hopefully will bring them closer together, despite the fact that the father, Stuart is staying behind on land. But just when things start to take a turn for the better, disaster strikes.

Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.

Catherine Ling was abandoned on the streets of Hong Kong at age four. Schooled in the art of survival, she traded in the only commodity she had: information. As a teenager, she came under the tutelage of a mysterious man known only as Hu Chang - a skilled assassin and master poisoner. As a young woman, she was recruited by the CIA and now she is known as one of their most effective operatives. Having lived life in the shadows, Catherine is aware of the wobbly moral compass of her existence....

From the outside in, the Devlin family lead almost-perfect lives. Dashing father Nick is a successful businessman long married to sweetheart Jean, who upholds the family home and throws dinner parties while daughter Lily attends Catholic school and is disciplined into modesty by the nuns. Under the surface, however, the Devlins are silently broken by the death of their little boy.

When eco-terrorists blow up a series of dams crossing the Columbia River, US Fish & Wildlife undercover agent Venus Diamond attempts to find out what happened to her friend and fellow eco-cop Louie Song, believed drowned during the massive explosion at the Priest Rapids Dam. A dead salmon sent to Venus suggests the reason behind the series of dam blasts, and simple logic maps the deadly path that lies ahead, including the potential eco-disaster that could come with blowing up the grandest of them all...

Pittsburgh has recently (and more than once) been called the most livable city in America; yet the old image of smoky skies and steel mills spewing forth grit has never quite disappeared. Its history as a dirty industrial center is a part of its residents, a part of their toughness. The people of the steel city fight.

Heart-stopping prose and crackling observations on a spiritual journey toward a life rich in love and freedom.Stuck in a dead-end relationship, this fearless narrator leaves her metaphorical baggage behind and finds a comfort zone in the air, "feeling safest with one plane ticket in her hand and another in her underwear drawer."

With the outbreak of the American revolution, Abigail Lovell's family is torn apart - while her schoolmaster father is an outspoken loyalist and prominent figurehead in the community, she and her two brothers engage in acts of espionage to undermine the British forces in Boston. Her sickly older brother, James, operates the patriots’ spy ring while Abigail acts as a courier, eluding increasingly aggressive British patrols. Meanwhile, her younger brother, Benjamin, slips out of Boston to fight alongside Abigail’s love, Ezra, in the battles at Lexington and Concord.

In a book that begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies, Eula Biss explores race in America. Her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays - teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting for an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago’s most diverse neighborhood.

Eco-Breeder or Satan’s Scientist? A nightclub fire claims fifty-three lives, including that of Dr. Hannah Strindberg, a scientist who runs the secretive Breedhaven project on a remote island near the US-Canada international border. The nightclub fire proves to be arson. US Fish and Wildlife Undercover Agent Venus Diamond suspects the target was Dr. Strindberg.