Robert Ferraro has narrated 7 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is If You Ain't a Pilot....
If You Ain't a Pilot...
Summary
Cockpit chaos and classroom camaraderie fuel the entropic adventures of Second Lieutenant Ray Wright and his fellow classmates of UPT Class 88-07 at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. Though competing against one another for the flying assignments of their dreams, like the fearsome F-15 and F-16 fighters, a good mission sometimes takes a backseat to a good party or punch line in this classroom of cut-ups.
The high stakes, however, loom over Lt. Wright. In a program where one out of three students fails, not everybody who starts UPT will finish it. And not everybody who does finish will get a desirable flying assignment. Some won’t even escape the Columbus Air Force Base. Will Lt. Wright get his dream assignment flying a C-141 cargo plane based out of beachside Charleston, South Carolina? Or be forced to perpetuate the If you ain’t a pilot...system as the dreaded FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) in Columbus, Mississippi?
Though a military memoir, If You Ain’t a Pilot...is a story of youthful innocence, a happy tale of the best of friends. Beneath the story’s surface layer of how an Air Force officer’s aeronautical rating determines his worth, similar thematic layers unfold around gender, race, and other ways people define each other. At its core, this story is about people, our relationships, and how we choose to treat each other. While 30 years have passed since the memoir’s events - and our aircraft, our enemy, and our pop-culture ties have changed - we still struggle with our differences.
©2014 Raymond John Wright (P)2019 Raymond John Wright
The Wanted
Summary
The Wanted, Barry Freeman's new novel, is a suspenseful thriller for thoughtful fans of literary fiction. The book features respected lawyer Benjamin Diamond, who is pushing 70 and retiring after many successful years as the head of an esteemed Chicago law firm. He lives with his wife Elizabeth and their two golden retrievers in their Highland Park, Illinois, steel and glass dream house on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. One Sunday, mid-August morning, Ben and Liz take their dogs for a romp on the beach below their house. The dogs come upon an apparent pile of rags, which turns out to be an obliterated corpse. A tailor's name tag, too, easily enables the police to identify the otherwise unidentifiable body as an international fugitive known as James Terry. Terry is the missing one of three defendants in a criminal case Diamond is defending - his final trial before retirement. James Terry (aka Sharky) is a sinister gambler and killer, an escapee from a Baghdad jail, wanted by the Baghdad authorities, the FBI, Interpol, the Las Vegas mob, and a wife left destitute and pregnant. Sharky's life has been fatefully entangled with the Diamonds' lives, conceivably as a result of his own free will, the inevitability of determinism, divine intervention, or a combination thereof (listener's choice), perhaps from the beginning of the universe through the thrilling conclusion of the book. The body on the beach launches the story of Sharky's intriguing odyssey: from his Atlantic City beginnings and maturity into life as a gambler; his troubles in Las Vegas; escape to Baghdad and then to Istanbul; back to Chicago; to Costa Rica; and finally back to the Diamond’s beach. Add to the mix Taahira, his beautiful Egyptian mistress, and the appearance of Cathy, the talented 19-year-old daughter he’d never seen - and the plot thickens. The author retired as a trial lawyer in 2007, after just about 50 years of practice in Chicago. This is his sixth published work and third novel.
©2016 Barry J. Freeman (P)2020 Barry J. Freeman
FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944
Summary
Although the presidential election of 1944 placed FDR in the White House for an unprecedented fourth term, historical memory of the election itself has been overshadowed by the war, Roosevelt’s health and his death the following April, Truman's ascendancy, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Today most people assume that FDR’s reelection was assured. Yet, as David M. Jordan’s engrossing account reveals, neither the outcome of the campaign nor even the choice of candidates was assured. Just a week before Election Day, pollster George Gallup thought a small shift in votes in a few key states would award the election to Thomas E. Dewey. Though the Democrats urged voters not to "change horses in midstream", the Republicans countered that the war would be won "quicker with Dewey and Bricker." With its insider tales and accounts of party politics, and campaigning for votes in the shadow of war and an uncertain future, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 makes for a fascinating chapter in American political history. The book is published by Indiana University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks. "Clearly written, well-researched narrative." (Journal of American History) "Jordan's writing style is superb." (Intl Social Science Review) "This is a fun volume on an often overlooked presidential contest." (Karl Rove)
©2011 David M. Jordan (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks
The Ninth Precinct
Summary
Private detective Grant Dawson is looking for his first big money case. When the mayor of a small town calls him to help solve a murder, he doesn't think twice - especially since the money offered was right up his alley. But nothing would prepare him for the horrors he would face. His body and mind will be pushed to the limit, as the line between right and wrong blurs. Can Grant solve the case, or will he be driven mad by the killer's mind games?
©2020 A.E. Stanfill (P)2020 A.E. Stanfill
A Tale of Two Lawyers
Summary
A Tale of Two Lawyers is a novel that chronicles the professional and personal lives of two Chicago attorneys - Mel Foster and Jerry Sloan - as they follow divergent pathways, beginning as law school roommates and continuing through their colorful, contrasting legal careers. Love and marriages come and go in the progression of their lives, but one woman becomes of key importance in the final confrontation that ends their careers - successfully and happily for one, and ignominiously for the other. About the author: Barry J. Freeman has been a Chicago litigator for over 47 years (now retired). He writes from his experience as a participant and observer, exposing the practice of law as it has changed from noble profession to a dog-eat-dog, money-grubbing business, driven by a widespread, flagrant, unethical lawyer/client conflict of interest - hourly billing.
©2015 Barry Jay Freeman (P)2020 Barry Jay Freeman
The Saint of Lake Topaz
Summary
Taking a detour on his way back to Vegas, Bull, one of Big Red Fortunato’s righthand men, visits his old army buddy Sal Stark. Sal has bought a small casino in Lake Topaz, a small town off Route 66 in the Mojave desert. Upon arriving at the Lucky Lady, Bull is dismayed to discover that Sal has been severely beaten, apparently by local “businessmen” who want to claim the casino as their own. Further investigation reveals that the head of this organization, Jarret Hastings, is holding a group of little girls captive. One of the little girls, Susie, is rescued by Bull and believes him to be “the saint of Lake Topaz” she’s been praying for. Bull’s hardened heart is unfrozen, and he immediately calls his boss Big Red, owner of the famous Starlight Club in Queens, to assist in taking down what is likely a human-trafficking ring. But what Red and Bull, with the assistance of the usual players - Pissclam, Johnny Eight Fingers, Trenchie, and others - find out is that the kidnapping of young girls by Hastings is just the tip of the iceberg. In the 11th installment of the popular, award-winning Starlight Club series, author Joe Corso takes us on a thrill ride through the little-traveled roads of Nevada desert in the 1960s - when the local law was often subject to interpretation!
©2019, 2020 Joe Corso (P)2020 Joe Corso
Taking Shergar
Summary
It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. Bred and raced by the Aga Khan IV and trained in England by Sir Michael Stoute, Shergar achieved international prominence in 1981 when he won the 202nd Epsom Derby by 10 lengths - the longest winning margin in the race's history. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.
In Taking Shergar: Thoroughbred Racing's Most Famous Cold Case, Milton C. Toby presents an engaging narrative that is as thrilling as any mystery novel. The book provides new analysis of the body of evidence related to the stallion's disappearance, delves into the conspiracy theories that surround the inconclusive investigation, and presents a profile of the man who might be the last person able to help solve part of the mystery.
Toby examines the extensive cast of suspects and their alleged motives, including the Irish Republican Army and their need for new weapons, a French bloodstock agent who died in Central Kentucky, and even the Libyan dictator, Muammar al-Qadhafi.
The book is published by The University Press of Kentucky. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
©2018 Milton C. Toby (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks