Kate Wilhelm has 14 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Summary
When the first warm breeze of Doomsday came wafting over the Shenandoah Valley, the Sumners were ready. Using their enormous wealth, the family had forged an isolated post-holocaust citadel. Their descendants would have everything they needed to raise food and do the scientific research necessary for survival. But the family was soon plagued by sterility, and the creation of clones offered the only answer. And then that final pocket of human civilization lost the very human spirit it was meant to preserve as man and mannequin turned on one another. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity and rigorous in its science, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and hard science fiction. It won science fiction's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication and is as compelling today as it was then.
©1976 Kate Wilhelm (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Mirror, Mirror
Summary
Chaos has descended on the Valducci family. Gina Valducci's grandmother and mentor, the founder of the family's thriving nursery business, has died. Her death sets off a string of seemingly unrelated events, including two horrific murders. Gina's colleague Jeff stands out as an obvious suspect, with plenty of motivation, opportunity, and means. In her most unusual and complex case yet, Barbara Holloway accepts Jeff as her reluctant client. But to defend him, she must first discover how a secret will, corporate greed, stolen art of the World War II era, family skeletons, attempted murder, and an old ornate mirror factor in to the case. Barbara must reassemble the puzzle pieces perfectly before it's too late.
©2017 Kate Wilhelm (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Sleight of Hand
Summary
When a seemingly simple case turns complicated, respected attorney Barbara Holloway must rethink her game plan. Gregarious Las Vegas entertainer and ex-con Wally Lederer claims he's turned his life around. But when Jay Wilkins, a childhood friend, accuses Wally of stealing a valuable artifact, it's up to Barbara to ferret out the truth. Wally swears he's innocent. But when a murder takes place and the police name Wally as their prime suspect, Barbara knows he is in serious trouble. As Barbara begins to "dig up the dirt", she is shocked to learn that Jay's wife is now missing and that Jay himself is far from being the upstanding businessman he claimed to be. Before long, new evidence points toward an unlikely killer. But the truth that would protect her client could jeopardize another life she means to save.
©2006 Kate Wilhelm (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Cold Case
Summary
Controversial author and scholar David Etheridge is not the kind of company an aspiring politician wants to keep. But ambitious senator Robert McCrutchen has a history with Etheridge that he's desperately trying to keep under wraps: 22 years ago, both men were investigated in the still-unsolved death of a young coed. When Etheridge returns to Oregon, McCrutchen is his grudging host - until the senator is found shot dead. Now, Etheridge is once again suspected of murder, only this time, with the cold case reopened, he's facing a double charge. Attorney Barbara Holloway must battle both the prosecution and the court of public opinion, which has already tried and convicted Etheridge for both murders. As the pressure mounts, Barbara must risk her own life to protect a client and preserve justice.
©2008 Kate Wilhelm (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
No Defense
Summary
Barbara Holloway is a trial lawyer who tends to take on difficult cases. One involved a woman accused of killing her own child, another involved a mentally disabled man, and her last one found her entangled in such a mess that it's a wonder she lived through it at all. But in every previous case she has had some fragment with which she could build an argument. This time out, it seems there's no defense at all. Lara and Vinny Jessup had a lovely May-December marriage. It renewed his lease on life after a battle with cancer, and it rescued her from a bad first marriage. Initially, the sheriff out in Loomis County thinks that Vinny died when his car rolled over on a bad curve on Lookout Mountain. Then he finds the gunshot wound. Was it suicide or was it murder? With a large insurance policy as her motive, Lara could have staged the death - or so it appears to the sheriff. Barbara Holloway finds herself drawn to the Oregon desert to take on this case, accompanied by her associates: her colleague Shelley with her Barbie-doll looks, the inimitable detective Bailey Novell, and her father Frank (who's soon to be a published writer). But the case itself is as dead as the desert. Is there any defense at all?
©2000 Kate Wilhelm (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Best Defense
Summary
A gripping, poignant, and masterful courtroom novel, The Best Defense is a major work from one of America's most popular writers. After her recent harrowing experiences, attorney Barbara Holloway isn't looking to take on any new courtroom cases; instead she's happy working from a booth in a cafe in the local working-class neighborhood. But when the sister of "Baby Killer" Kennerman asks for help, Barbara reluctantly looks into matters and finds that incompetent lawyers and a smear campaign from the local right-wing press are going to allow a killer to go free. The deeper Barbara delves into the case, the more atrocities she finds and the more she believes that the best defense may not be enough. With this extraordinary novel, Kate Wilhelm returns to the marvelous milieu of Death Qualified, bringing us a legal thriller of the finest caliber.
©1994 Kate Wilhelm (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks
Desperate Measures
Summary
Barbara Holloway has a reputation for taking on the toughest cases - and winning them. But this time she's up against an unbeatable opponent - her father, the lawyer who taught her all she knows.Gus Marchand, a hardworking, God-fearing farmer, is found dead on his kitchen floor, and suspicion soon falls on Alex Feldman, Marchand's hideously deformed neighbor. At the request of another attorney, Barbara agrees to defend the young man, whom most of the town has already condemned.But there is another suspect, as well: Hilde Franz, a woman Gus had a very public altercation with just before he was murdered. Hilde also happens to be an old friend of Barbara's father, Frank, who, unaware of his daughter's involvement in the case, agrees to represent Hilde. For the first time in her career, Barbara cannot turn to her father for advice. Quite the contrary: she has to stay one step ahead of him if she's to have any hope of saving her client. Because she knows only too well what kind of legal mind she's up against.
©2001 Kate Wilhelm (P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks
A Wrongful Death
Summary
Elizabeth Kurtz has taken her small son and fled her ex-husband and his mother after finding a file of explosive material incriminating the family. Although the wealthy family employs a detective agency to find her, she manages to elude them. Defense attorney Barbara Holloway has sought seclusion in a cabin on the Oregon coast, but her solitude is interrupted by a small boy who enlists her help with his unconscious mother. Once revived, the woman and her child disappear. Elizabeth Kurtz is again eluding searchers, and Barbara is accused of aiding and abetting a kidnapper. When Elizabeth finally contacts Barbara for help, Barbara finds the woman dead. Barbara, while defending Elizabeth's housemate against murder charges, is accused of obstruction of justice and faces possible disbarment and prison. As she realizes the importance of the secret papers, she also realizes that her life is at risk as she takes on a killer.
©2007 Kate Wilhelm (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Death Qualified
Summary
Five years ago Barbara Holloway gave up practicing law, disillusioned with a profession that put politics before justice. Then she receives a phone call, with a simple message: "I need you." Nell Kendricks's husband disappeared seven years earlier, abandoning his young family. Nell hasn't seen him since, until the day Lucas Kendricks arrives at the edge of her property and is shot, instantly killed. Accused of his murder, Nell turns to lawyer Frank Holloway for help. But Frank knows he cannot win this case alone. He calls upon his daughter Barbara, who remains "death qualified," legally able to defend clients who face the death penalty if convicted. Barbara is determined to stay distanced from the case, but the more she learns, the more questions she finds herself asking. Is Nell innocent, as Frank attests? Where has Lucas Kendricks been for the past seven years? Despite her vow, Barbara finds herself drawn to the case and reclaims the search for truth that first led her to the law.
©1991 Kate Wilhelm (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Unbidden Truth
Summary
When Louise Braniff hands Barbara Holloway a large retainer and asks for complete anonymity, the Oregon attorney is both intrigued and suspicious. The woman, a respected music professor, is a member of a group that sponsors worthy causes involving women. And they want Barbara to defend Carol Fredricks, a gifted young pianist who stands accused of murdering the manager of a piano bar. Not long ago Barbara heard Carol play, and that is enough to convince her to take the case. But now the questions are coming faster than the answers. Carol's straightforward version of what happened the night Joe Wenzel was murdered clashes with the incriminating evidence against her. And how can Barbara explain the oddly incomplete picture she gets of the young woman herself? Carol can't remember a huge part of her past, only the new life that began when she woke up in a hospital at the age of eight to learn that her parents were dead. She has no memory of learning to play the piano and is having haunting nightmares about a woman named Carolyn Frye. Soon Barbara is convinced that her client is not only innocent but that she is being framed by ruthless foes who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. However, proving the case and keeping her client safe will require every drop of Barbara's notoriously fierce determination to get at the truth. And as she unravels the stunning trail of deception, hatred, and remarkably deep abiding love that holds the key to the mystery of Carol Fredricks, Barbara discovers that the unbidden truth may just damn them both.
©2004 Kate Wilhelm (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks
Malice Prepense
Summary
When he was a kid, Teddy Wendover had an accident that left him stunted at the mental age of eight. Physically, he's six-foot-two and 28-years-old, but he acts and thinks just like a little boy. Could this big little boy be a killer? Someone has murdered one of Oregon's congressmen, and it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that this politician led the field trip during which Teddy's accident occurred almost 20 years ago. Nor does it seem to be coincidental that the killer left rocks strewn about the murder site, rocks just like the ones Teddy plays with. The only thing that's certain is that the person who cast the first of these stones is not without sin. Malice Prepense is the most complicated and most engrossing case yet for lawyer Barbara Holloway, the dynamic star of Death Qualified and The Best Defense.
©1996 Kate Wilhelm (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks
Defense for the Devil
Summary
In her three previous novel appearances, attorney Barbara Holloway has taken on the sort of cases no one else wants: hopeless messes, all of them. But with the help of her father, Frank, she has pulled through each time. Even from the start, though, this new case is different. Mitch Arno always meant bad news for the coastal town of Folsum, Oregon. When they ran him out of town 17 years ago, he left behind a wife with two daughters and a family that never wanted to see him again. When he returns, he brings trouble in the form of a lot of suspicious money. As Barbara attempts to counsel Mitch's wife about the money, a second form of trouble arrives: Mitch's corpse. Now Barbara is in a morass of conflicting interests, and the only way out could lead her straight into the arms of the devil.
©1999 Kate Wilhelm (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Heaven Is High
Summary
Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon, who left her father’s high-powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents and ponder her next move. But while trying to sort out her own future, two people, desperate for help, show up on her doorstep: former pro football player Martin Owens and his wife, Binnie. Binnie, who is mute, met her husband when she sneaked aboard his boat while it was docked in Haiti and smuggled herself into the US. Now Immigration is seeking to deport her back to Haiti, which would be a death sentence. Born to a woman from Belize who was kidnapped and enslaved by pirates, Binnie’s only hope is to prove her and her mother’s real identity. With only days to find the truth and protect Binnie, Holloway sets off for Belize. But what she knows is only the tip of the iceberg in what turns out to be one of her most complex, compelling, and dangerous cases yet.
©2011 Kate Wilhelm (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Good Children
Summary
It started with a promise, a pact. It became a secret that no one must tell - that their parents were dead and gone, including the one they'd buried in the backyard.Now the McNair children are growing older, discovering love, college, and careers. But their lie haunts them. Their home holds them captive. Only the horrifying truth of their mother's death can set the children free. And only the truth can destroy them all.
©1998 Kate Wilhelm (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.