Showing results by narrator "R. C. Bray" in All Categories

When Artemus Black is hired to investigate a series of suspicious accidents at LA's most prestigious modeling agency, he quickly discovers that brooding pouts and mascara can be as dangerous as guns or bombs. From LA to Mexico to Tahoe to NY, the story pokes fun at the world of high fashion as Black races to discover who's killing the models.

From the introduction by Les Standiford: "The truth is that Miami, though naturally lovely, is a frontier town, perched on the border between the known and the rarely before experienced. The poet Richard Hugo once said that the natural place for the writer was on the edge, and 'edge' might well be the definitive word when it comes to this city... We are not only on the edge of the continent, we are to this country what New York was in Ellis Island's heyday, what the West Coast was in the middle of the 20th century.

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

A gifted 7-year-old boy and his teen siblings are ripped from their peaceful lives, kidnapped by a sinister organization determined to get back at their father. But when their plane crashes an ocean away in the bear-infested jungles of South China, the mysterious motive behind their abduction is the least of their problems, and they must lever every ounce of their courage and wits to survive the wilds and escape the ruthless drug lord who is hot on their heels.

Fresh from PXO School, Lt. Charlie Harrison is offered a posting on Sandtiger under Captain Gilbert Moreau, a legendary fighting captain in the submarines. Sandtiger's mission is to join a wolf pack that will penetrate the heart of the Japanese Empire. Along the way, Moreau teaches Charlie how to fight. And what lines should never be crossed.

Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath - vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research - three boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man.

Five hundred years have passed since the Earth shifted on its axis - a catastrophic event that wiped out civilization and released magic back to Earth. Now, a dark age shrouds our world once more. Journey into a future rife with witches, conjurers, and mythical creatures that have returned from the nether realm. Follow three intertwined fates: Paine, a young man hunted by Confederation soldiers; Brahm, the woman that slaughtered his mother, and in whose body the woman's soul now resides; and John, a friar.

Lt. Charlie Harrison survived the horrors of Rabaul and the midnight battle with the Mizukaze. When he reports to Sabertooth at Pearl, he must contend with a crew that isn't quite welcoming and an officer protecting a dire secret. While underway, the captain reveals the submarine's mission - travel to the Japanese-occupied Philippines, deliver supplies to the Filipino guerillas, and bring American refugees home.

What’s a nice, proper dame like Joan Parker doing in a place like Dick Moonlight’s office? The scar running down her face - from the business end of an axe - has something to do with it. Shortly after the attack that killed her husband and left her for dead, she pointed the finger at her son, Christopher, who now sits in jail. But the woman insists the police have it all wrong - Christopher didn’t do it - and she just needs the private eye to prove it. Moonlight knows mothers will say anything to protect their kids. He also knows how the police can take a mistake and run with it.

Black to Reality is the fourth in the acclaimed Black series of noir detective fiction featuring Artemus Black, the world's losingest Hollywood Private Investigator. In this installment, he is saved from financial calamity when he takes a case that requires him to work undercover on a reality television show, posing as an over-the-hill rocker trying for one last shot at success.

On February 19, 1942, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and Japanese Army successes in the Pacific, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a fateful order. In the name of security, Executive Order 9066 allowed for the summary removal of Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent from their West Coast homes and their incarceration under guard in camps. Amid the numerous histories and memoirs devoted to this shameful event, FDR's contributions have been seen as negligible.

Artemus Black. Perennially down-on-his-luck Hollywood PI whose Bogie fixation is as dated as his wardrobe. With an assistant who mocks him relentlessly, an obese cat that loathes him, a romantic life that's deader than Elvis, money problems, booze, nicotine, and anger management issues, how much worse can it get?

A gang of Obama-masked thugs in a downtown Albany alley gave Dick Moonlight a one-way ticket to the Pearly Gates. But when his hovering spirit slips back into his bruised body, the real trouble starts. A private detective with a short-term memory problem, Moonlight knows he’s still in danger. He’s got plenty of enemies to keep him guessing why — even the latest love of his life, Lola, can’t be trusted. But the goons who snuffed him want something else: Moonlight’s latest client, a handicapped nuclear engineer, had a top-secret box the gang believes is in Moonlight’s possession. Moonlight can’t remember any box — but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have it. He just better figure out where it is before he winds up dead for the last time.

A thrilling Knopf New Face of Fiction debut, A Cold Night for Alligators takes the reader on a breathtaking ride through the seedy, sensual Florida Everglades, unravelling a mystery at the heart of which lies a devastating family secret.

When Merritt Fury, a fiercely independent American entrepreneur, returns to Hong Kong on business, little does he know that he has become enmeshed in a conspiracy to confiscate his investment and render the Crown colony a dependency on the Mainland dictatorship to the north. While he suspects foul play by some of his business partners in Bluelist TungstenTrading, he also learns that he is the object of scrutiny by an underground group combating the conspiracy. He meets Amber Lee.

Thirty-year-old Daisy DiStefano has two people she holds dear: the grandmother who raised her and her three-year-old son, Elliott. But when Daisy's grandmother is killed, Daisy must take steps to protect herself and her child.

For Ahren, it's no longer a question of someone trying to kill him; it's who will try next. Still on the run for a murder he didn't commit, Ahren adapts to life as an outlaw as his reputation of the Black Raven grows. Yet nothing comes easily. Dogged by bounty hunters, he finds himself crossing steel with pirates on the high seas and battling monsters in subterranean cities. If that wasn't enough, he's paid to assassinate an immortal and must break out of a heavily fortified prison.

Combat pilot Jake Bronson believed the worst was behind him. But when a sophisticated terrorist cell shows up in his hometown, he's drawn into a conflict that threatens the heart and soul of every mother in America. The bonds of love and loyalty are tested as Jake and his friends are swept into a deadly chase that takes them from the beaches of California to the depths of the world's longest underground river, and finally to the remote jungles of the Venezuelan rain forest.

The last thing Jenna Landry wants is to fall in love. The former rock musician is getting ready to start a new job and a new life in L.A., and she's only back in her hometown for the summer. Nothing could tempt her to stay any longer than that...not even the sexy doctor next door. Michael Stone has a reputation for being as cold as ice. So what is it about his free-spirited neighbor that sets him on fire?