J. Charles has narrated 35 audiobooks on Listento.it by 17 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 162 ratings. The most-rated is Golden Buddha.
Golden Buddha
Summary
Juan Cabrillo's first adventure with the Oregon - a state-of-the-art spy ship disguised as a nondescript lumber hauler - takes him and his crew into dangerous waters as they try to put Tibet back in the hands of the Dalai Lama by striking a deal with the Russians and the Chinese. Cabrillo's gambling chip is a golden Buddha containing records of vast oil reserves in the disputed land. But first he'll have to locate - and steal - the all-important artifact. And there are certain people who would do anything in their power to see him fail....
©2003 Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Midnight
Summary
In picturesque Moonlight Cove, California, inexplicable deaths occur, and spine-tingling terror descends to this "edge of paradise". Growing numbers of residents harbor a secret so dark it is sure to cost even more lives. Tessa Lockland comes to town to probe her sister's seemingly unprompted suicide. Independent and clever, she meets up with Sam Booker, an undercover FBI agent sent to Moonlight Cove to discover the truth behind the mysterious deaths. They meet Harry Talbot, a wheelchair-bound veteran, who has seen things from his window that he was not meant to see. Together they begin to understand the depth of evil in Moonlight Cove. Chrissie Foster, a resourceful 11-year-old, running from parents who have suddenly changed and in whom darkness dwells, joins them. Together they make a stand against darkness and terror.
©2004 Dean Koontz (P)2004 Brilliance Audio
Red Phoenix
Summary
From the author who collaborated with Tom Clancy on Red Storm Rising, this is the book that dares to show us the military hardware, global upheavals, and raw combat a second Korean War would unleash. How F-16s would blast across the 38th Parallel. How ultra-modern submarines would vie for the seas. And how two armies would turn the snowfields of Asia red with blood. A thundering geopolitical thriller of vast scope, this is Red Phoenix - and a new standard for military/political suspense fiction.
©1990 Larry Bond (P)2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
Summary
How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free offers inspirational advice on how to enjoy life to its fullest. The key to achieving an active and satisfying retirement involves a great deal more than having adequate financial resources; it also encompasses all other aspects of life - interesting leisure activities, creative pursuits, physical well-being, mental well-being, and solid social support. In How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, bestselling author Ernie J. Zelinski guides you to: Gain courage to take early retirement; in fact, the earlier the better. Put money in proper perspective so that you don’t need a million dollars to retire. Generate purpose in your retirement life with meaningful creative pursuits. Follow your dreams instead of someone else’s. Take charge of your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Create and maintain great friends - a key ingredient for a great retirement. Above all, make your retirement years the best time of your life. With its friendly format and positive tone, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free offers retirement wisdom that you won’t get from your financial advisor. This wisdom will prove to be much more important for creating an active, satisfying, and happy retirement than how much money you have saved.
©2009 Ernie J. Zelinski (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Sacred Stone
Summary
A power that could destroy the world A prize that men will kill to possess Juan Cabrillo must find it first.... Two opposing groups seek a 50,000-year-old radioactive meteorite known as the Sacred Stone. Muslim extremists have stolen a nuclear device and need the stone to give them the power to vaporize any city in the west. A megalomaniacal industrialist leads a group seeking to carry out the utter annihilation of Islam itself. And caught between the two militant factions is Juan Cabrillo and his crew, who must do whatever they can to stop the impending doom....
©2008 Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Triple
Summary
EGYPT - where, hidden deep in the desert, a top-secret project to build a nuclear plant that will give the Arabs the bomb nears completion.... ISRAEL - where the Mossad's top agent, Nat Dickstein, a master of disguise and deceit, is given an impossible mission: to beat the Arabs in the arms race by finding and stealing 200 tons of uranium without any other nation discovering the theft.... RUSSIA - where top KGB officials have decided to tip the atomic balance in Egypt's favor.... ENGLAND - where Dickstein makes what could be the fatal mistake of his career by falling under the seductive spell of Suzie Ashford, the dazzling, dark-haired beauty who may be his dearest ally or his deadliest enemy.... THE HIGH SEAS - where the Mossad, KGB, Egyptians, and Fedayeen terrorists play out the final violent, bloody moves in a devastating game where the price of failure is nuclear holocaust.
©1979 Ken Follett (P)1999 Brilliance Audio
Pandora's Curse
Summary
In northern Greenland, geologist Phillip Mercer finds a dead body hot with radiation in a 1950s U.S. Army base under the ice. Mercer is almost killed when the old base is set on fire. Geo-Research, the German team studying global warming, hustles Mercer and company out of Greenland, and Mercer vows to find out why. Surviving a bomb on the plane taking them back to Iceland, Mercer, the beautiful Anika Klein, and their fellow explorers search for the shelter of an ice cavern until they can be rescued - and that's when they learn the truth.
Geo-Research is a front for Kohl AG, a German company which profited from its wartime use of slave labor. Rather than pay into the compensation fund, Kohl is trying to destroy its biggest secret - the hidden Nazi submarine base that harbored the remains of the radioactive meteorite that exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. The Nazis contained the radiation in boxes made of looted wartime gold nicknamed "Pandora boxes." But Kohl AG's special projects director is a neo-Nazi and plans to sell the Pandora boxes to the highest bidding terrorist nation. Only Mercer and a WWII-era U-boat can stop the evil plot to hold the world hostage.
©2004 Jack Du Brul (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
River of Ruin
Summary
In the heart of Panama, a volcanic lake feeds a serpentine river - its stone banks laid by the Incas, who took back the gold and jewels plundered from them by the conquistadors. Legend has it that the Twice-Stolen Treasure has been buried for centuries in the Panamanian jungle. Discovering it means surviving the black waters of the River of Ruin...
It begins at a Paris auction house, with a favor granted by an old high school friend to geologist Philip Mercer: the opportunity to buy a rare diary written during the French attempt at digging the Panama Canal. But Mercer isn't the only one who wants it. Three Chinese assassins have been dispatched to get it, forcing Mercer into a subterranean game of cat and mouse that takes him from the hellish maze of l'empire de la mort and through the sewers of Paris.
Mercer realizes he has uncovered an intricate Chinese plot to trigger a deadly shift in the world's balance of power. At stake is control of the canal, recently handed over to the government of Panama by the United States. Only Philip Mercer - with help from beautiful U.S. Army officer Lauren Vanik, a cell of French Foreign Legion commandos, and a crusty eighty-year-old retired sea captain named Harry White - can stop them.
©2004 Jack Du Brul (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Deep Fire Rising
Summary
Hired to lead the excavation of caverns deep beneath Area 51, Philip Mercer finds himself drilling straight into the epicenter of an age-old conspiracy. A reclusive order of Himalayan monks, through special knowledge of the earth's tectonic movement, has predicted the end of the world - and is determined to see the prediction unfold accordingly.
Now, with icebergs floating through the South Pacific and a thermonuclear bomb set to destroy an island paradise, the stage is set for Armageddon - and it is up to Philip Mercer and the beautiful, mysterious Tisa Nguyan to prevent a cataclysm beyond imagination.
©2004 Jack Du Brul (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Charon's Landing
Summary
Russian mastermind Ivan Kerikov plans to use an ecological terrorist group to sabotage the Alaska pipeline and pollute the western coast of North America with oil, all to turn the United States from domestic to foreign sources of oil. He's being paid millions by a rogue Arab oil minister who is plotting a coup in his own country and is in desperate need of foreign income to solidify his position.
But Kerikov hasn't allowed for geologist Philip Mercer, who has a talent for being in the right place at the right time. When Mercer discovers that an apparent accident was actually murder, he investigates and soon begins to untangle Kerikov's web. At his side is Aggie Johnston, right hand woman to the eco-terrorist, who has begun to question her leader's motives.
©2006 Jack Du Brul (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Shadows
Summary
They call it the Academy. A secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast. A school for children gifted - or cursed - with extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own - and unspeakably evil. For within this mind a dark plan is taking form. A plan so horrifying, no one will believe it. No one but the children. And for them it is already too late. Too late, unless one young student can resist the seductive invitation that will lead... into the Shadows.
©2005 John Saul (P)2005 Brilliance Audio
Because You Loved Me
Summary
A LIFE TAKENJeanne Dominico's fiancé found her body on her kitchen floor. More than 40 stab wounds and blows to her head with a blunt instrument had cut her life short. What monster had struck in the heart of a peaceful New England town?A TRUST BETRAYEDJeanne was a hard-working single mother. Nicole, her 14-year-old daughter, was on the honor-roll and head over heels in love - with an 18-year-old man she'd known only through the Internet. Once the lovers met in person, Jeanne's motherly instincts sensed trouble. If only she'd known that the life in danger was her own.IN THE NAME OF LOVEWith a history of psychological trouble and family misfortune, Billy Sullivan's obsessive and controlling power over Nicole contributed to the brutal slaying of her mother. But it was Nicole's stunning confession and guilty plea that led to Billy's sensational trial, where a sordid tale of love, loss, betrayal and murder finally took a cold-blooded killer offline - and on line for justice.
©2007 M. William Phelps (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Perfect Poison
Summary
In Northampton, Massachusetts, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse - so why were her patients dying?
So many emergencies and sudden deaths occurred while Kristen made her rounds on Ward C that her colleagues jokingly called her the "Angel of Death". Yet most people didn't suspect the horrifying truth behind the nickname: that Gilbert's polished façade concealed a scheming, manipulative liar and a homicidal, narcissistic sociopath.
From August 1995 through February 1996, Gilbert dealt out wholesale death. Her victims were helpless patients who trusted her as a caregiver, only to learn too late that she was a killer, her weapon a drug capable of causing fatal heart attacks.
She got away with murder until three of her fellow nurses could no longer ignore the proliferation of deadly "coincidences" on Gilbert's watch. Investigators believe Kristen Gilbert may have been responsible for as many as 40 deaths. As the law closed in, she struck back, faking suicide attempts, harassing witnesses, stalking her ex-boyfriend, and terrorizing the hospital with bomb threats.
In March 2001, after being found guilty of four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder, "Angel of Death" Kristen Gilbert was sentenced to life imprisonment.
©2008 M. William Phelps (P)2008 Brilliance Audio
The Privilege of Youth
Summary
More than six million readers can attest to the heartbreak and courage of Dave Pelzer's story of growing up in an abusive home. His inspirational books have helped countless others triumph over hardship and misfortune.
Now this former lost boy, who defeated insurmountable odds to emerge whole and happy, at last takes us on his incredible odyssey toward healing and forgiveness. In The Privilege of Youth, Pelzer supplies the missing chapter of his life: as a boy on the threshold of adulthood.
With his usual sensitivity and insight, he recounts the relentless taunting he endured from bullies; but he also describes the joys of learning and the thrill of making his first real friends - some of whom he still shares close relationships with today. He writes about the simple pleasures of exploring a neighborhood he was just beginning to get to know while trying to forget the hell he had endured as a child.
From high school to a world beyond the four walls that were his prison for so many years, The Privilege of Youth charts this crucial turning point in Dave Pelzer's life. This brave and compassionate memoir from the man who has journeyed far will inspire a whole new generation of readers.
©2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Medusa Stone
Summary
Ten years ago, the spy satellite Medusa burned upon re-entry - but not before its sensors revealed a secret buried deep in the earth. A priceless discovery that some would die to find - and kill to possess. With uncanny talent as a geologist and a quick intelligence matched by savvy and courage, Philip Mercer is fast becoming a legend in powerful circles around the world. And at least two groups in those circles need his help. One group - of unknown allegiance and with a reputation for violence - snatches and holds hostage his oldest friend, forcing Mercer to help them. In a harsh and hostile land ravaged by violence, Mercer races to find the one thing that will save his friend. But the location of this ancient treasure is elusive. He is thwarted by brutal competing forces, and suddenly, he learns that there is much more at stake than either his life or the life of an old friend: The fate of thousands of innocent souls depends on him - and him alone.
©2000 Jack Du Brul (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Havoc
Summary
"Dear Albert, Nicola was right." The opening lines of a letter lost long ago is the answer to a question no one ever thought to ask, a question that could well reshape the future of the United States as a world power. Seventy years ago, Chester Bowie, a genius driven to madness, unlocked the mystery of how a weapon of unimaginable lethality allowed one man and his small army to conquer so much of the ancient world. The secret, however, died with Bowie in a fiery disaster that was no accident. Yet a series of cryptic clues were left behind, clues that geologist, and sometime government operative, Philip Mercer must follow if he is to prevent terrorists from unleashing the weapon on today's world. On the front lines of an African civil war, a chance meeting between Mercer and Cali Stowe, a researcher for the Centers for Disease Control, propels the two of them into the epicenter of the greatest act of terrorism ever conceived. With a group of savage rebels backed by a one-eyed mercenary bearing down on an isolated village, Mercer and Cali discover a long-abandoned mine that had first been excavated millennia ago and that was worked again around the time of the Second World War. What mineral was wrenched from the earth and by whom? What is the significance behind the stone pillar erected in the middle of the village? And who is the enigmatic man with the scholar's mind and the killer's skills who rescues them at the last minute only to kidnap Cali upon her return home? Again and again Mercer's path crosses that of his savior and the mercenary - at a glittering Atlantic City casino, on a barge high atop Niagara Falls, and in Russia where Mercer must stop a runaway train to prevent Armageddon. Each time they meet the bloodshed grows worse while the mystery deepens. Nobody is who they seem. Nobody. With a blend of history, exotic locales, and unparalleled action, Havoc will captivate all listeners.
©2007 Jack Du Brul (P)2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dark Zone
Summary
Dark fear
In a secluded headquarters on the other side of the globe, a terrorist mission is underway - a plan to set off an underwater explosion so great, and with such hellish force, that it could shift the very foundation of the earth's surface, causing untold calamity and world-wide disaster. The terrorists call it "God's Revenge".
Dark WeaponA nuclear warhead has gone missing. Small in size, it packs up to ten times the kilotons that exploded over Hiroshima. It's now in the wrong hands, ready to detonate a world war of unfathomable proportions.
Dark ZoneIn the top-secret headquarters of the National Security Agency, a small cadre of special agents form Deep Black, designed to bring a techno-edge to covert operations and eliminate the cyber-threats to world peace. This is Charlie Dean's world - an NSA ex-Marine sniper now enlisted to stop the unthinkable.
But when his suspicions of a traitor in his shadow become frighteningly true, Dean's race against time could mean the end of the free world.
©2004 Stephen Coonts and Jim DeFelice (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Vulcan's Forge
Summary
Beneath the Pacific Ocean a volcano surges upward, carrying in its fiery heart a mineral more powerful than uranium. When the volcano breaks the ocean's surface, nations will battle to control what is known as Vulcan's Forge - a source of limitless, clean, nuclear power. The secret of Vulcan's Forge begins to unravel when Mercer, a man of many talents now working for the US Geologic Survey, learns that the daughter of an old friend is in danger. Saving her takes Mercer from the Oval Office to a secret submarine off Hawaii. On the islands, a secessionist movement has turned violent and the US trembles on the brink of a civil war, while behind the scenes, shadowy figures jockey for control of the emerging volcano.
©2008 Jack Du Brul (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
If Looks Could Kill
Summary
Big and brash, Jeff Zack didn't hide his rough lifestyle. And when he died, it was in plain sight: executed in the parking lot of a BJ's Wholesale Club in Akron, Ohio, by a motorcycle-riding assassin dressed in black.
Jeff Zack's murder stunned investigators - but then, so did his life. A long list of people might have had reasons to want Zack dead, including the loyal wife he had humiliated and the wealthy nightclub owner whose wife - a blond, hard-bodied beauty queen - he openly dated. But the truth would get even stranger.
In this shocking true story of adultery, mind games, lies, wealth, and sexual liaisons in upscale Middle America, true-crime master M. William Phelps tells the astounding story of a man who loved the wrong woman - and was brutally murdered by a killer with the deadliest possible motive of all.
©2008 M. William Phelps (P)2007 Brilliance Audio
Deep Black
Summary
A spy plane gathering data on a new Russian weapon is blown out of the sky by a mysterious MiG. Is it an accident, or the start of the next world war? One U.S. agency has what it takes to find out - the National Security Agency and its covert operations team: DEEP BLACK.
Working for the NSA, ex-Marine sniper Charlie Dean is dispatched to Russia, hooking up with former Delta Force trooper Lia DeFrancesca to find out what happened to the plane. The Deep Black team stumbles across an even more alarming secret - a plot to assassinate the Russian president and overthrow the democratic government by force. The coup could have dire consequences for Russia and the world.
With no clearance from the government it's called on to protect, the National Security Agency goes to war. But before Lia and Dean can unravel the conspiracy, they learn that one of the spy plane's passengers - an NSA techie - survived the crash. Critical information could fall into enemy hands. And that enemy is playing to the death.
©2004 Stephen Coonts and Jim DeFelice (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.