Showing results by narrator "Richard Ferrone" in All Categories

When Luke Starbuck takes on a wealthy banker as a client, the only thing more compelling than the paycheck is his prey. The James-Younger gang has confounded countless detectives, including the men of the Pinkerton Agency. Now it's Starbuck's chance to bring down the most notorious group of outlaws the West has ever seen-led by none other than cold-blooded killer Jesse James. Undercover work and patient tracking take Starbuck from Kansas City straight through the Indian Territory

Adam Rait just wants to guide his crew across the state of Texas, deliver his cargo, and get paid. But his convoy is almost immediately joined by mysterious Mexican travelers - the beautiful and mysterious Angel de Acera and her brother, Bernal. When Kurt Hanover, the man running the deal and Rait's employer is murdered, Rait is left wondering what he should do with an entire wagon train of smuggled arms?

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. This anthology includes brand-new stories by: Tommy Moore, Jessica Breheny, Naomi Hirahara, Calvin McMillin, Liza Monroy, Elizabeth McKenzie, Jill Wolfson, Ariel Gore, Jon Bailiff, Maceo Montoya, Micah Perks, Seana Graham, Vinnie Hansen, Peggy Townsend, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Lou Mathews, Lee Quarnstrom, Dillon Kaiser, Beth Lisick, and Wallace Baine.

Bruce Martell is a man of principle. Riding into Indio Basin in search of his kid brother, he immediately feels uneasy. Before he can encounter even a single settler, he happens upon the corpses of four poached cows. After a brief encounter with the angry owner of the slaughtered cattle, he makes his way into the town of Starlight. Here he finds a climate of hostility, the farmers and settlers pitted against the cowboys and cattlemen. He feels the settlers' hostility keenly, and after an altercation with a drunkard, he finds himself in need of rescue from the angry mob.

Panguitch is king of the wild mustangs. A magnificent stallion the color of a lion, except for his black mane and tail, he has been unsuccessfully sought for years by a number of horse hunters. Chane Weymer can hardly believe when the Paiute chief, Toddy Nokin, confides in him, a white man, that Panguitch and his herd are on Wild Horse Mesa in Utah. How can a herd of horses be on the insurmountable mesa?

When young Jarret Pekoe aims to bring a band of violent border-jumpers to justice, his sister hires rifleman Lem Beauchamp to scare some sense into him. But when trouble arrives, they must work together to defeat the outlaws once and for all. Jarrett Pekoe cares about two things: his ranch and his family. So when rustlers kill his kin and burn his land to the ground, Jarrett won't rest until the men responsible have their necks caught in the hangman's rope.

On December 7, 1941, even as Japanese carrier-launched aircraft flew toward Pearl Harbor, a small American cargo ship chartered by the army reported that it was under attack from a submarine halfway between Seattle and Honolulu. After that one cryptic message, the humble lumber carrier Cynthia Olson and her crew vanished without a trace, sparking one of the most enduring nautical mysteries of the war. What happened to the ill-fated ship? What happened to her crew?

The Founding Fathers have been hailed for centuries as shining examples of men who put aside their own agendas to found a nation. But behind the scenes, there were more petty fights and fraught relationships than signatures on the Declaration of Independence. From the violent brawl between Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon in the halls of Congress to George Washington's battle against his slave, Harry Washington, these less discussed clashes bring to light the unpredictable and volatile nature of a constantly changing nation.

William Charles Croydon, a convicted murderer sentenced to death, amuses himself by exchanging correspondence with the misguided women who send him fan mail. But soon even that loses its attraction, and so he begins to write to the brother of his victim, Paul Danridge. At first, Danridge doesn’t reply, so he writes again, and again. After ignoring the letters initially, Dandridge finally can’t help himself and begins writing back.

Drive-by shootings are almost by definition anonymous - there are no fingerprints, no fibers, no hairs, nor any other telltale clues typical of most crime scenes. There is usually no hard evidence beyond ballistics and a car description so generic it is virtually useless. In Drive-By, Gary Rivlin penetrates the anonymity of one such incident and creates an extraordinary portrait of the people entangled in it. He takes us behind the headlines, and through bold investigative reporting, finds the individuals so often left out of the story.

When Presidential Deal hit the bestseller lists, fans of Les Standiford’s other books, including Done Deal and Raw Deal, rejoiced. They already knew what new listeners would find: taut suspense, tough characters, and a superb sense of mood. Now in Black Mountain, Standiford combines high-country adventure with a tale of ruthless revenge.

In 1838, 13,000 Cherokee were forced to leave their home in the Southeast and walk 900 miles to present-day Oklahoma. Hunger, cold, and disease threatened their very survival. Their grueling trek - the Trail of Tears - takes on new immediacy and meaning with this stunning work of fiction. Maritole loses not only her home and her settled life in North Carolina, but also many of the people closest to her. A chorus of voices joins hers to vividly recreate the tragic story of the Cherokee removal.

Ralph Compton created a distinct brand of Western that lives on in the epic tales bearing his name. Bullet for a Bad Man features brothers Boone and Epp, who have little in common besides a God-given ability to draw steel with eyesearing speed. Happy raising cattle, Boone wonders at his brother’s lawlessness. But he never thought Epp’s ambitions would turn brother against brother—nor imagine he’d face the prospect of sending his own kin to the next world.

In West Texas, Lucius Stark is regarded as a no-good killer with nothing to say in his favor. But when Stark goes tender for a woman he's hired to kill, he's shot in the back and left with a burning desire for revenge.

Ben Thompson carved out a name for himself as a gambler and a shootist - from Dodge City to the Rio Grande. But settling down in Austin with a wife and young son didn't settle Ben's taste for the sporting life. He still found himself in the gambling dives - where the turn of a card too often led to a shootout. Soon a circle of powerful businessmen decides that Thompson is the only man who can tame Austin's wild side. They ask him to rule the streets - and take no prisoners. They want him to take on the job of a marshal in a town in which every man packs a gun. 

When the wife of a mob witness is killed and his teenage son is kidnapped, the ransom isn't cash - it's his life. The dead can't testify. If the witness kills himself, the mob will let his son live. Now veteran cops Abe Lieberman and Bill Hanrahan need to protect their witness from himself while they turn Chicago's gangland upside down to save the kid. It doesn't help that Hanrahan is newly sober in AA, battling drink urges and the guilt of recently losing another informant. Lieberman has seen his partner at his worst with the booze and always had his back.

Caught in a Three Strikes law that sends him to prison for life, Nate Larson negotiates with prosecutors for an early release in exchange for testifying against his brother in an upcoming trial. As part of the deal, he demands custody of his 14-year-old granddaughter, Grace, who's survived a string of disastrous foster homes. Nate studied close-up magic during his time in prison. He's good, and despite her wariness Grace joins him for a touring magic show of New England.

What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle's break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut's remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting Earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor's buried longing.

A local basketball star in a small Ohio town tries to remake his life in middle age, but instead must confront a murderer and the prospect of leaving his hometown and giving up everything that once gave his life meaning. Nicholas “Duke” Ducheski is the most important man in the eastern Ohio steel town of Mingo Junction. Nearly two decades after he made the winning shot in the state championship basketball game, he remains much adored and the focal point of community pride. Hardly a day passes when someone doesn’t want to talk about “the game”.

“Before we got to Vietnam, the troops all thought you would be the first lieutenant killed, and in the end, you were the only one left. We were all wrong. You were the best.” —Sgt. Lonnie “Tallman” Caldwell December, 1966: Platoon leader Lt. Joseph Callaway had just turned twenty-three...