Showing results by narrator "Mel Foster" in All Categories

What could be more innocent than watching old movies? For Neil Catalin, a wealthy man with a happy home, old-fashioned pictures were a hobby that became an obsession. But he wasn’t watching The Wizard of Oz. Crime movies were his passion, the sort where life is cheap and death is free, and Catalin sank himself into them as an escape from the stresses of suburbia. Now he has disappeared, and his wife believes the clue may be in his collection of gruesome classics.

Barry Goldwater was a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost its way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life.

In You Know Who Killed Me, by multiple award-winning author Loren D. Estleman, Amos Walker is at low ebb. Just released from a rehab clinic, the Detroit private detective has to marshal his energies to help solve a murder in Iroquois Heights, his least favorite town. The area is flooded with billboards rented by the widow of Donald Gates, an ordinary suburbanite found shot to death in his basement on New Year's Eve: "You know who killed me!"

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul documents the beloved singing star’s rocky personal life and internationally acclaimed show business career. An in-depth and frank examination of Aretha, this definitive biography traces her career from her beginnings as a 12-year-old member of a church choir in the early 1950s, recording her first album at the age of 14, a major recording contract at 18, and stardom in her 20s, right up through her headline-grabbing 2010 health scare, to her triumphant return: singing to her cheering Detroit hometown fans in summer 2011.

A private detective working in Wilmington, North Carolina, is found dead in a gas-station restroom, apparently poisoned. But when her body sets off radiation alarms in the pathologist's office, suspicion falls on the nearby Helios nuclear power plant, a heavily guarded facility with supposedly fail-safe procedures.

One cold November night, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fifteen-year-old Richard Jahnke Jr., ROTC leader and former Boy Scout, waited for his parents to return from celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the night they met. When his father got out of the car, the boy blasted him through the heart with a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Richard's seventeen-year-old sister, Deborah, was sitting on the living room couch with a high-powered rifle - just in case her brother missed.

The End of the Beginning is a remarkable history of cancer treatment and the evolution of our understanding of its dynamic interplay with the immune system. Through Michael Kinch’s personal experience as a cancer researcher at Washington University and the head of the oncology program at a leading biotechnology company, we witness the incredible accumulation of breakthrough science and its rapid translation into life-saving technologies that have begun to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of life for cancer patients.

Former reporter Scott Fleetwood and his family are still recovering after tangling with a notorious kidnapper, the Piper, when another kidnapper grips the city. The Shepherd has snatched a young girl from a vacationing family. Other than money, he has one demand: he'll talk only to Scott.

Thanks Dad gives fathers the pat on the back they deserve. Children of all ages share their heartfelt words of thanks and loving memories in these stories. Thanks Dad will bring any father joy, inspiration, and humor - and maybe even the realization that his kids did pay attention after all.

The greatest threat to an organization's success is not always the competition. Often, it is what a company does to itself. Because of fear, companies become plagued with barriers and bureaucracy that limit success, crush employees, and infuse frustration and a sense of futility across the enterprise. It starts with a narrowing of focus, which leads to the first level of bureaucracy: parochialism.

For Jim McCann, the founder and CEO of the world’s leading florist, 1-800-Flowers.com, being open and ready to speak to a variety of audiences is his most powerful leadership tool. In Talk Is (Not!) Cheap, McCann illustrates how the art of conversation leadership - the process he developed to engage others and create forward momentum in the workplace - can be used to inspire, innovate, and win. Using a blend of how-to and insightful personal stories, this audiobook argues that the gift of gab may just be the most critical (and undervalued) skill set in today’s workplace.

In a matter of days, Peter McDowell loses everything he has worked so hard for - his wealth, his property, his livelihood as a star investment banker. And then it gets worse. The stock market crash not only plunges Peter into joblessness, it causes a rift in his marriage that he cannot repair. Stripped of everything, he has only one place to retreat: a lakeside cottage he inherited from his parents, who left most of their modest estate to Peter's twin. With no other choice, the prodigal son goes home.

Thirty-Three Stories of Family Fun, Relatively Strange Moments, and Happily Ever Laughter.

Something is happening to the children of Eastbury, Massachusetts....something that causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs. Something that strikes at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something unexplained that is taking the children, one by one. An entire town waits on the edge of panic for the next child to be taken. They all know there must be a reason for the terror, but no one ever expected...The God Project.

The attractive and cunning genius Ryan Kroll is known throughout the private sector as a man who can obtain information by any means necessary — often using creative and violent tactics to get what he wants. In the past, his targets were obvious and his end result was clear.

That's the question Elliott Goodman hears in the OR as he's about to have emergency surgery following a heart attack. But it isn't Elliott's surgeon who's asking. It's God. As in the Almighty. And God has a wager for Elliott. He challenges him to an eighteen-hole golf match. If Elliott wins, he is saved; if he loses...So begins this witty, insightful, and very funny novel about golf and life and the lessons learned from both.

In 1976, Vince Papale was a down-on-his-luck substitute teacher, part-time bartender, and season ticket holder for the Philadelphia Eagles, the team he'd grown up rooting for. He had always loved football, but the closest he'd ever come to playing on Sundays was in local rough touch leagues. Until fate stepped in. Vince was 30 years old and wondering what he would do with his life, when he heard that Coach Dick Vermeil was holding open tryouts for the Eagles.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when perfectly rational people ran the Republican Party. So how did the party of Lincoln become the party of lunatics? That is what this book aims to answer. Fear not, the Dems come in for their share of tough talk - they are zombies, a party of the living dead. Mike Lofgren came to Washington in the early eighties - those halcyon, post-Nixonian glory days - for what he imagined would be a short stint on Capitol Hill.

Cat is a single mother living in Detroit when her brother is killed in New York, and she sets off in search of his child. Her search is still under way when she gets a call from her father. Sam is 80 and carrying the weight of a secret he has kept from Cat all her life. He asks her to visit him in California, intending to make his peace.

With the holidays over and the long cold winter looming, January can be a bleak month in Minneapolis. So what better way to bring a little cheer to the good people of the city than by sponsoring an old-fashioned snowman-building contest? In a matter of hours, a local park is filled with the innocent laughter of children and their frosty creations. But things take an awful turn when the dead bodies of police officers are discovered inside two of the snowmen - sending the entire department and Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth on high alert.