C. J. Critt has narrated 52 audiobooks on Listento.it by 22 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 479 ratings. The most-rated is One for the Money.
One for the Money
Summary
You’ve lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car’s been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month’s rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you’re Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter; you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad. And not just any cop. She goes after Joe Morelli, a disgraced former vice cop who is also the man who took Stephanie’s virginity at age 16 and then wrote details on a bathroom wall. With pride and rent money on the line, Plum plunges headlong into her first case, one that pits her against ruthless adversaries - people who’d rather kill than lose. The New York Times Book Review calls Stephanie Plum “a Jersey girl with Bette Middler’s mouth and Cher’s fashion sense.” In Stephanie Plum, Evanovich has created a resourceful and humorous character who stands apart from the pack of gritty female detectives.
©1994 Janet Evanovich (P)1995 Recorded Books, LLC
Body of Evidence
Summary
Late one night Beryl Madison turns off her burglar alarm, puts down her gun and opens her door to the man who has stalked and terrorized her for months. Hours later, her brutally mutilated body lies in the city morgue. As Scarpetta begins searching for the microscopic clues to the killer’s identity, one question keeps nagging her: why did Beryl let him in?
©1991 Patricia D. Cornwell (P)1994 Recorded Books, LLC
Postmortem
Summary
Four young women have been found murdered—tortured and strangled in their own beds—all victims of the same brilliant monster. Using a skilled hand and the latest technology in forensic medicine, Kay Scarpetta begins the process of gathering the microscopic clues the latest battered body has to give.
©1990 Patricia D. Cornwell (P)1993 Recorded Books, LLC
Two for the Dough
Summary
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back, packing a whole lot of attitude. This time around, she's on the trail of Kenny Mancuso, a boy from the working-class burg of Trenton, New Jersey, who has just shot his best friend. Fresh out of the Army and suspiciously wealthy, Mancuso's also distantly related to Joe Morelli, a vice cop with questionable ethics, a libido in permanent overdrive, and a habit of horning in on Stephanie's investigations.
©1999 Janet Evanovich (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Four to Score
Summary
Stephanie Plum, Trenton, New Jersey's favorite pistol-packing, condom-carrying bounty hunter, is back and on the trail of a revenge-seeking waitress who's skipped bail. With the help of 73-year-old Grandma Mazur, ex-hooker Lula, a transvestite musician named Sally Sweet, and the all-too-hospitable, all-too-sexy Joe Morelli, Stephanie might just catch her woman. Then again, with more mishaps than there are exits on the Jersey Turnpike, including murders, firebombs, and Stephanie's arch-rival bounty hunter chasing after the same fugitive, Stephanie better watch her back big-time if she wants to live to crack this case.
©1998 Evanovich, Inc. (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLC and Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Three to Get Deadly
Summary
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back. The brassy babe in the powder blue Buick has been given the unpopular task of finding Mo Bedemier, Trenton's most beloved citizen, arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, gone no-show for his court appearance. Once again, the entire One for the Money crew is in action, searching for Mo, tripping down a trail littered with dead drug dealers, leading Stephanie to suspect Mo may be in over his head.
©1994 Janet Evanovich (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
All That Remains
Summary
A serial killer is stalking Virginia’s young lovers, taking their lives and taunting police with a single clue: a jack of hearts. For two years, the meaning of this card has eluded FBI investigators. But as Scarpetta begins searching the victims’ remains for microscopic clues, she begins to suspect that someone in the FBI knows more about the murderer.
©1992 Patricia D. Cornwell (P)1995 Recorded Books, LLC
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Summary
The six Herdman children are “absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world”. They lie and steal and smoke cigars. They even burned down Fred Shoemaker’s old toolhouse. Now they’re taking over the Christmas pageant. The Herdmans have never heard the Christmas story before, and they don’t know anything about shepherds or Wise Men. When Imogene hears about the swaddling clothes, she demands to know why anyone would tie up a baby and put him in a feedbox. Leroy, Claude, and Ollie are planning on a gift that means much more than gold, frankincense, and myrrh - the ham from their Christmas basket. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, now also a television movie, has been a favorite of children and their parents since 1972. As C.J. Critt’s spirited narration captures the lively and outrageous spin that the Herdmans put on the Nativity scene, listeners will delight in this unusual and refreshing interpretation of Christmas.
©1972 Barbara Robinson (P)1997 Recorded Books
The Bean Trees
Summary
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity of putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.
©1988 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
Pigs in Heaven
Summary
Picking up where her modern classic The Bean Trees left off, Barbara Kingsolver's best-selling Pigs in Heaven continues the tale of Turtle and Taylor Greer, a Native American girl and her adoptive mother who have settled in Tucson, Arizona, as they both try to overcome their difficult pasts. Taking place three years after The Bean Trees, Taylor is now dating a musician named Jax and has officially adopted Turtle. But when a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation begins to investigate the adoption, their new life together begins to crumble. Depicting the clash between fierce family love and tribal law, poverty and means, abandonment and belonging, Pigs in Heaven is a morally wrenching, gently humorous work of fiction that speaks equally to the head and to the heart.
©2016 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
A Thousand Acres
Summary
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jane Smiley's spellbinding novel also headed best-seller lists for many months. A Thousand Acres is the powerful, mythic story of an American farm family and the land that nourishes and consumes its members. Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach. The Cook family, and the farm community around them, are part of a mosaic that is as enduring as the fences and fields of the broad midwestern landscape. But this endurance exacts an immense price from them in return. You will find that this nationally-acclaimed, breathtaking story, in a stirring narration by C. J. Critt, is an unforgettable listening experience.
©1991 Jane Smiley (P)1996 Recorded Books
Legend
Summary
A captivating romance from the New York Times best-selling author of Remembrance. Deveraux transports us from modern-day Virginia to the high mountain deserts of 1873 Colorado, with a vibrant new tale about a feisty lady and the man she was meant to love. Petite Kady Long, a celebrated chef about to be married to a gorgeous man, felt she was the luckiest woman alive. But when she tried on an antique satin wedding dress, she was overcome with dizziness. When she opened her eyes, Kady was in the harsh, sunlit landscape of 1873 Legend, Colorado. There, she meets Cole Jordan, a tall, rangy, and very appealing man. But while Kady is anxious to return to her time, Cole has other ideas...i deas that could give him and the inhabitants of Legend what they so desperately need - a future.
©1999 Jude Deveraux (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Hard Row
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Margaret Maron has garnered Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and American Mystery awards for her captivating series set in rural North Carolina. When a local farmer - known for his severe treatment of migrant workers - turns up savagely murdered, Judge Deborah and her new Deputy Sheriff husband soon wade into a quagmire of exploitation. But as murders mushroom, the two uncover secrets that threaten both their community and their new life together. More mayhem? Listen to another Deborah Knott mystery.
©2007 Margaret Maron (P)2007 Recorded Books
Manhunt
Summary
"Alexandra Scott, Alaskan Wilderness Woman". It had a terrific ring to it, but Alex felt a sudden twinge of uncertainty. She'd traded in her Wall Street job and fancy condo for a rundown cabin in the woods and a bait and tackle store. She'd wanted to escape the rat race and to go husband hunting where men outnumbered women four to one, but was she ready for the challenge? Then she spotted Michael Casey, a sexy pilot who was undaunted by disaster, had hero written all over him, and was a confirmed bachelor. Michael Casey was the man she had come to Alaska to hunt, and Alexandra Scott had him in her sights.
©1988, 2005 Janet Evanovich (P)2005 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Hero at Large
Summary
It seems like good luck when gorgeous and mysterious Ken Callahan stops to help single mom Chris Nelson with her car. But then she breaks his arm...then his toe...and then his heart. Not easily discouraged, Ken moves into her basement...cooks her potholder in the spaghetti sauce...attempts to seduce her with cookies...and destroys her favorite pan by trying to make a roast in it. All may seem lost for Chris and Ken, until a meddlesome Aunt Edna, a ride on a Zamboni and a genuine love of family all conspire to turn their luck around.
©2010 Evanovich, Inc. (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers
Wife for Hire
Summary
Hank Mallone knows he's in trouble when Maggie Toone agrees to pretend to be his wife in order to improve his rogue's reputation. Will his harebrained scheme to get a bank loan for his business backfire once Maggie arrives in his small Vermont town and lets the gossips take a look? Maggie never expected her employer to be drop-dead handsome, but she's too intrigued by his offer to say no...and too eager to escape a life that made her feel trapped. The deal is strictly business, both agree, until Hank turns out to be every fantasy she ever had.
©1990, 2007 Evanovich, Inc (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers
The Grand Finale
Summary
From the #1 New York Times best-selling author comes a revised, repackaged novel sure to please her many fans. She writes "high speed comic mayhem" ( Detroit Free Press); she's "a blast of fresh air" ( Washington Post); "side-splitting funny" ( Publishers Weekly) and "a winner" ( Glamour). In other words, she's Janet Evanovich. Berry Knudson had a talent for disaster, but when she climbed a tree to rescue a kitten, she wasn't prepared for the scrumptious hunk undressing in a nearby window, or her dive downward that smashed Jake Sawyer's pizza and won his heart! But was there room in her chaotic schedule for a risk-taking inventor with dreams? She took classes, delivered pizzas, and cared for three eccentric old ladies she rescued from the train station. But Jake thrived on a challenge, and he could be very inventive. Could he teach her there was time to make butterscotch pudding and let herself be loved?
©2009 Evanovich, Inc. (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers
Out of the Shadows
Summary
Kay Hooper’s flair for storytelling and her broad mastery of genre are apparent in her electrifying novels. Her many works include modern and historical romances, fantasies, mysteries, gothic novels, and, like Out of the Shadows, suspense thrillers featuring psychic ability. The small, friendly town of Gladstone, Tennessee seems the ideal place to raise a family - until two teenagers are found tortured to death. Sheriff Miranda Knight will do anything to make her small town safe again, even if it means calling in Noah Bishop, the FBI’s psychic profiler. The last time she and Noah combined their psychic powers, she was almost destroyed. Now she must learn to trust him again, or she will most certainly die at the hands of the monster who’s stalking her town. Narrator C.J. Critt breathes life into the beautiful psychic sheriff with paranormal powers and transforms this exciting blend of romance, mystery, and suspense into an exciting listening experience.
©2000 Kay Hooper (P)2001 Recorded Books
Naughty Neighbor
Summary
Dear Listener: In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote 12 short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. Nine of these stories were originally published by the Loveswept line between the years 1988 and 1992. All immediately went out of print and could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales. I'm excited to tell you that those nine stories are now being re-released by HarperCollins. Naughty Neighbor is the eighth in the lineup, and it's presented here in almost its original form. Usually, when I edit these books, I do some modernizing. For instance, I change VHS to DVD, and roller skates to Rollerblades, and sticks of gum are now pieces of gum. I do this because the books were meant to be contemporary (as opposed to historical), and I don't want the listener to have a time disconnect. In the beginning of the original Naughty Neighbor, my heroine throws a handheld phone into the toilet, and the next morning she goes into the bathroom and sees the "slim silver antenna caught between the toilet lid and seat." Okay, so most phones don't have extended antennas anymore, but I just loved the image...so I left it in. And I don't know how many women wear front-closure bras anymore, but that got left in, too. Naughty Neighbor is probably the most romancey of all the Loveswepts I wrote, but there's still a small mystery to unravel. Louisa Brannigan is a no-nonsense, hardworking press secretary, fighting her way to the top of Capitol Hill, with no help from her annoying neighbor, Pete Streeter. He receives phone calls all night long, he steals her morning paper, he thinks jeans are formal wear, and worst of all, he's involved Louisa in the disappearance of a pig. So this is the story of a pig in Witness Protection and love being found by a workaholic woman and a fun-loving man who makes terrible pots of coffee. Enjoy! Janet Evanovich
©2008 Evanovich, Inc. (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers
Cruel and Unusual
Summary
When an executed murderer’s fingerprints turn up at a new crime scene, Kay Scarpetta investigates. Prepare for the kind of riveting suspense this best-selling author delivers so well.
©1993 Patricia D. Cornwell (P)1993 Recorded Books, LLC