Robertson Dean has narrated 197 audiobooks on Listento.it by 213 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 3,310 ratings. The most-rated is Dark Places.
Magic Time
Summary
The world has changed forever. Across America, technology has been eclipsed by magic, and people are changing into the embodiments of their darkest desires and deepest fears. In this new time, former lawyer Cal Griffin has united a small group of outcasts to battle the chaos. Searching for the source of the unholy phenomenon, and to save Cal's sister, Tina, these unlikely heroes make their way cross country, led by the visions of a lunatic and the fragile song of a blind man. Hidden within ancient burial mounds, a secret paradise may offer the chance of hope, if they can find Tina. But first they must make their way to Chicago to battle a primal monster, and the darkness within themselves.
©2002 Paper Route Inc. (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Roman
Summary
Raven and her sister, Cara, are at the mercy of a small detachment of Florentine vampyres who are delivering them as a peace offering to the feared Curia in Rome. Though she's unsure William survived the coup that toppled his principality, Raven is determined to protect her sister at all costs, even if it means challenging Borek, the commander of the detachment. In an effort to keep Raven from falling into the hands of his enemies, William puts himself at the mercy of the Roman, the dangerous and mysterious vampyre king of Italy. But the Roman is not what he expects. Alliances and enmities will shift and merge as William struggles to save the woman he loves and his principality without plunging the vampyre population into a world war. This stunning conclusion to the Florentine series will take listeners across Italy and beyond as the lovers fight to remain together...forever.
©2016 Sylvain Reynard (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
A Dark Matter
Summary
The incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and unexpected ways. The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body and the shattered souls of all who were present. Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about that horrible night, and it's through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier. Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group's members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub's many ardent fans, and win him legions more.
©2010 Peter Straub (P)2010 Random House
Satan's Circus
Summary
Nearly five million men and women have served the United States as police officers. Only one has been executed for murder. They called it Satan's Circus, a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the 20th century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel. But when, two weeks later, an ambitious district attorney charged young policeman Charley Becker with ordering the murder, even the denizens of Satan's Circus were surprised. The handsome lieutenant was a decorated hero, the renowned leader of New York's vice-busting Special Squad. Was he a bad cop leading a double life, or a pawn felled by the sinister rogues who ran Manhattan's underworld? With appearances by the legendary and the notorious, Satan's Circus brings to life an almost-forgotten Gotham. Chronicling Charley Becker's rise and fall, the audiobook tells of the raucous, gaudy, and utterly corrupt city that made him, and recounts not one but two sensational murder trials that landed him in the electric chair.
©2007 Mike Dash (P)2007 Books on Tape
Metamorphica
Summary
A brilliant and daring novel that reimagines Ovid's Metamorphoses In the tradition of his best-selling debut novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason's Metamorphica transforms Ovid's epic poem of endless transformation. It reimagines the stories of Narcissus, Pygmalion and Galatea, Midas, and Atalanta and strings them together like the stars in constellations - even Ovid becomes a story. It's as though the ancient mythologies had been rewritten by Borges or Calvino. Metamorphica is an archipelago in which to linger for a while; it reflects a little light from the morning of the world.
©2018 Zachary Mason (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Walk-In
Summary
Gary Berntsen, longtime CIA operative and the field commander who cornered Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, writing with award-winning novelist Ralph Pezzullo, offers in this edge-of-the-seat thriller a terrifying vision of where the next threat to America may come from. When a highly placed Iranian intelligence operative walks into a U.S. embassy claiming to possess explosive information, counterterrorism officer Matt Freed is dispatched to interview him and is warned of an impending attack on the United States that could kill millions. But is the man's story precious truth or calculated fiction? Matt isn't sure, but with a possible catastrophe looming in less than two weeks, his superiors reluctantly prepare for the assault. Matt can't leave it alone, though. With questions still lingering about what is really going on, he defies his superiors' orders and launches his own investigation. As the clock ticks down, he searches frantically for the truth at an Afghan prison under siege, an abandoned Uzbekistan bio weapons facility, and a Moscow hospital where an arms dealer is dying of a mysterious disease. Ultimately, Matt's efforts brand him an out-of-control renegade, and he finds himself left out in the cold. Yet he may be the only one with the knowledge needed to avert unimaginable chaos. From a counterterrorism warrior who has spent a lifetime thwarting those who would do us harm, The Walk-In is an exhilarating plunge into tradecraft and terror.
©2008 Ralph Pezzullo and Gary Berntsen (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
The Burning Shore
Summary
On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun on Virginia Beach, a massive fireball erupted from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. By the next day, three ships lay at the bottom of the channel, victims of Lieutenant-Commander Horst Degen and his crew on the German submarine U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of Degen's rampage along the American coast and of US Lieutenant Harry J. Kane's quest to bring him down. Since the beginning of 1942, German U-boats had prowled the waters of the Atlantic, sinking merchant ships and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from the United States to Great Britain. But when Kane and his crew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore that summer, the ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic - and the beginning of an unlikely friendship between the two rival commanders. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, TheBurning Shore describes how a small band of mariners and aviators drove Hitler's wolf packs from America's home waters.
©2014 Ed Offley (P)2014 Blackstone Audio
In the Cauldron
Summary
This is not just another book about Pearl Harbor. It is the story of Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan, and his frantic effort in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack to orchestrate an agreement between Japan and the United States to avoid the war he saw coming. It is a story filled with hope and heartache, with complex and fascinating characters, and with a drama befitting the momentous decisions at stake. And more than that, it is a story that has never been told. In those months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan and the United States were locked in a battle of wills. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic sanctions were crippling Japan. America’s noose was tightening around Japan’s neck - but the country’s leaders refused to yield to American demands. In this cauldron of boiling tensions, Joseph Grew offered many recommendations to break the deadlock. Having resided and worked in Tokyo for almost 10 years, Grew understood what Roosevelt and his administration back home did not: that the Japanese would rather face annihilation than endure the humiliation of surrendering to American pressure. The President and his administration saw little need to accept their ambassador’s recommendations. The administration’s policies, they believed, were sure to succeed. And so, with increasing urgency, Grew tried to explain to the President and his administration that Japan’s mindset could not be gauged by Western standards of logic and that the administration’s policies could lead Japan to embark on a suicidal war with the United States “with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.” Relying on Grew’s diaries, letters and memos, interviews with members of the families of Grew and his staff, and an abundance of other primary source materials, Lew Paper presents the gripping story of Grew’s effort to halt the downward spiral of Japan’s relations with the United States. Grew had to wrestle with an American government that would not listen to him - and simultaneously confront an increasingly hostile environment in Japan, where pervasive surveillance, arbitrary arrest, and even unspeakable torture by Japan’s secret police were constant threats. In the Cauldron reads like a novel, but it is based on fact. And it is sure to raise questions whether the Pearl Harbor attack could have been avoided.
©2019 Lew Paper (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
These Few Precious Days
Summary
They were the original power couple - outlandishly rich, impossibly attractive, and endlessly fascinating. Now, in this rare, behind-the-scenes portrait of the Kennedys in their final year together, NewYork Times best-selling biographer Christopher Andersen shows us a side of JFK and Jackie we’ve never seen before. Tender, intimate, complex, and, at times, explosive, theirs is a love story unlike any other - filled with secrets, scandals, and bombshells that could never be fully revealed…until now. Andersen reveals stunning new details about the Kennedys’ rumored affairs - hers as well as his - and how they ultimately overcame all odds to save their marriage; the president’s many premonitions of his own death and how he repeatedly tried to pull out of his last fateful trip to Dallas; shocking revelations about how the couple, unaware of the dangers, became dependent on amphetamine injections, the real reason - according to his longtime personal physician - for JFK’s notorious libido, how the tragic death of their infant son Patrick led to an emotional outpouring from the president that surprised even their closest friends - and brought JFK and Jackie closer than they had ever been, and touching firsthand accounts of the family’s most private moments, before and after the assassination. Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted with the Kennedys’ inner circle - from family members and lifelong friends to key advisers and political confidants - Andersen takes us deeper inside the world of the president and his first lady than ever before. Unsparing yet sympathetic, bigger than life but all too real, These Few Precious Days captures the ups and downs of a marriage, a man, and a woman, the memories of which will continue to fascinate and inspire for generations to come.
©2013 Christopher Andersen (P)2013 Blackstone Audio
The Neruda Case
Summary
Roberto Ampuero's novels starring the wonderfully roguish Cayetano Brulé are an international sensation. In The Neruda Case, listeners are introduced to Cayetano as he takes on his first case as a private eye. Set against the fraught political world of pre-Pinochet Chile, Castro's Cuba, and perilous behind-the-Wall East Berlin, this mystery spans countries, cultures, and political ideas, and features one of literature's most beloved figures-Pablo Neruda. Cayetano meets the poet at a party in Chile in the 1970s. The dying Neruda recruits Cayetano to help him solve the last great mystery of his life. As Cayetano fumbles around his first case, finding it hard to embrace the new inspector identity foisted upon him, he begins to learn more about Neruda's hidden agenda. Neruda sends him on a whirlwind expedition around the world, ending back in Chile, where Pinochet's coup plays out against the final revelations of their journey. Evocative, romantic, and full of intrigue, Ampuero's novel is both a glimpse into the life of Pablo Neruda as death approaches and a political thriller that unfolds during the fiercely convulsive end of an era.
©2012 Roberto Ampuero (P)2012 Tantor
The James Code
Summary
The James Code helps believers go from knowing about God to living for God. Best-selling author of The Joshua Code and The Jesus Code, O. S. Hawkins is back with a new book that is all about putting your faith into action. The James Code is practical, personal, and action-packed straight from one of the most popular books of the Bible. Once listeners have devoted themselves to Scripture memory in The Joshua Code, and have equipped themselves to give answers in The Jesus Code, The James Code challenges listeners to give feet to their faith. Hawkins gives applicable truth from the book of James emphasizing that an effective Christian life is not about faith and works, but is about faith that works. As with The Joshua Code and The Jesus Code, all royalties will go to Mission:Dignity, whose mission supports retired pastors and their wives or widows who have faithfully served God’s people and now find themselves struggling to meet even basic needs.
©2015 O. S. Hawkins (P)2020 Thomas Nelson
Black Mad Wheel
Summary
From the author of the hit literary horror debut Bird Box comes a chilling novel about a group of musicians conscripted by the US government to track down the source of a strange and debilitating sound. The Danes - the band known as the "Darlings of Detroit" - are washed up and desperate for inspiration, eager to once again have a number one hit. That is until an agent from the US Army approaches them. Will they travel to an African desert and track down the source of a mysterious and malevolent sound? Under the guidance of their front man, Philip Tonka, the Danes embark on a harrowing journey through the scorching desert - a trip that takes Tonka into the heart of an ominous and twisted conspiracy. Meanwhile, in a nondescript Midwestern hospital, a nurse named Ellen tends to a patient recovering from a near-fatal accident. The circumstances that led to his injuries are mysterious - and his body heals at a remarkable rate. Ellen will do the impossible for this enigmatic patient, who reveals more about his accident with each passing day. Part Heart of Darkness, part Lost, Josh Malerman's breathtaking new novel plunges us into the depths of psychological horror, where you can't always believe everything you hear.
©2017 Josh Malerrman (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Jawbreaker
Summary
In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description. As the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to aid in the hunt for bin Laden. In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit, which actually began years earlier in an East Africa bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan, sitting by General Tommy Franks’s side as heated negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance generals, bargaining relentlessly with treacherous Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world’s most wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains - and what happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-Qaeda leader’s last avenue of escape. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies. CIA Commander Gary Berntsen on... His eyebrow-raising style: “Most CIA Case Officers advanced their careers by recruiting sources and producing intelligence, I took a more grab-them-by-the-neck approach...I operated on the principle that it was easier to seek forgiveness than ask for approval. Take risks, but make sure you’re successful. Success, not good intentions, would determine my fate.” Doing whatever it took: “I didn’t just want to survive: I wanted to annihilate the enemy. And I didn’t want to end up like one of my favorite historical characters - Alexander Burns...He was one of the first of more than 14,000 British soldiers to be wiped out by the Afghans in the First Afghan War. Like Burns before me, I was also an intelligence officer and spoke Persian. This was my second trip into Afghanistan, too. The difference, I told myself, was that Burns had been a gentleman and I would do whatever it took to win.” Dealing with a Taliban official who controlled American hostages: “Tell him that if he betrays me or loses the hostages I’ll spend every waking moment of my life hunting him down to kill him. Tell him I’m not like any American he has ever met.” The capabilities of his Tora Bora spotter team: “Working nonstop, the four men directed strike after strike by B-1s, B-2s, and F-14s onto the al-Qaeda encampment with incredible precision. Somehow through the massive bureaucracy, thousands of miles of distance [and] reams of red tape...the U.S. had managed to place four of the most skilled men in the world above the motherlode of al-Qaeda, with a laser designator and communications system linked to the most potent air power in history…As I listened over our encrypted radio network, one word kept pounding in my head: revenge.” Also available as a Random House AudioBook
©2006 Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2006 Books on Tape
Peace
Summary
It’s the most dangerous of chess moves and a race against the clock. Iran sprints to the nuclear finish line. Israeli attack fighters head toward the border of Iran. As leaders struggle to confront the threat, the world holds its breath. Will principalities and powers and the “salt of the earth” - great and small - be able to intervene before events spin out of control? Nash Lee, an NGO entrepreneur, is determined to make a difference through his worldwide mVillage network. Kim Grace, a nuclear scientist imprisoned in North Korea’s secret Camp 16, knows the truth about the devastating technology she helped develop. Anshel Gould, the brilliant chief of staff at the White House, has created a radical peace plan based on the long-forgotten UN proposal for Palestine after the Second World War. But is there a way to stop what seems unstoppable? What Iran, Israel, North Korea, and other earthly principalities and powers decide next could lead to global confrontation….
©2010 Jeff Nesbit (P)2010 Oasis Audio
Shiloh
Summary
Travel through a pivotal time in American history....Discover what happened, why it matters, and what to see. Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of one of the Civil War battlefields every American should visit. He captures the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.
©2007 Jeff Shaara (P)2007 Random House, Inc.
The Yanks Are Coming!
Summary
Best-selling military historian H. W. Crocker III turns his guns on the epic story of America's involvement in the First World War with TheYanks Are Coming! A Military History of the United States in World War I. The year 2014 marks the centenary of the beginning of the Great War, and in Crocker's sweeping, American-focused account, listeners will learn: How George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall (of the Marshall Plan), "Wild Bill" Donovan (future founder of the OSS, the World War II precursor to the CIA), Harry S. Truman, and many other American heroes earned their military spurs in during World War I Why, despite the efforts of the almost absurdly pacifistic administration of Woodrow Wilson, American involvement in the war was inevitable How the First World War was "the war that made the modern world" - sweeping away most of the crowned heads of Europe, redrawing the map of the Middle East, setting the stage for the rise of communism and fascism Why the First World War marked America's transition from a frontier power - some of our World War I generals had actually fought Indians - to a global superpower, with World War I generals like Douglas MacArthur living to see, and help shape, the nuclear age About the "Young Lions of the War" - heroes who should not be forgotten, like air ace Eddie Rickenbacker, Sergeant Alvin York (memorably portrayed by Gary Cooper in the Academy Award - winning movie Sergeant York), and all four of Theodore Roosevelt's sons (one of whom was killed) Stirring and full of brilliantly told stories of men at war, The Yanks Are Coming! will be the essential audiobook for listeners interested in rediscovering America's role in the First World War on its 100th anniversary.
©2014 H. W. Crocker III (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc
Reinventing America's Schools
Summary
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now, other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that, in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.
©2017 David Osborne (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books
An End to Evil
Summary
An End to Evil charts the agenda for what’s next in the war on terrorism, as articulated by David Frum, former presidential speechwriter and best-selling author of The Right Man, and Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of defense and one of the most influential foreign-policy leaders in Washington. This world is an unsafe place for Americans - and the US government remains unready to defend its people. In An End to Evil, David Frum and Richard Perle sound the alert about the dangers around us: the continuing threat from terrorism, the crisis with North Korea, the aggressive ambitions of China. Frum and Perle provide a detailed, candid account of America’s vulnerabilities: a military whose leaders resist change, intelligence agencies mired in bureaucracy, diplomats who put friendly relations with their foreign colleagues ahead of the nation’s interests. Perle and Frum lay out a bold program to defend America - and to win the war on terror. Among the topics this audiobook addresses: Why the US risks its security if it submits to the authority of the United Nations Why France and Saudi Arabia have to be treated as adversaries, not allies, in the war on terror Why the US must take decisive action against Iran - now What to do in North Korea if negotiations fail Why everything you read in the newspapers about the Israeli-Arab dispute is wrong How our government must be changed if we are to fight the war on terror to victory - not just stalemate Where the next great terror threat is coming from - and what we can do to protect ourselves An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation - and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond. With a keen insiders’ perspective on how our leaders are confronting - or not confronting - the war on terrorism, David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line.
©2004 David Frum and Richard Perle (P)2004 Books on Tape, Inc.
Under the Red White and Blue
Summary
A deep dive into how F. Scott Fitzgerald's vision of the American Dream has been understood, portrayed, distorted, misused, and kept alive Renowned critic Greil Marcus takes on the fascinating legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. An enthralling parable (or a cheap metaphor) of the American Dream as a beckoning finger toward a con game, a kind of virus infecting artists of all sorts over nearly a century, Fitzgerald's story has become a key to American culture and American life itself. Marcus follows the arc of The Great Gatsby from 1925 into the ways it has insinuated itself into works by writers such as Philip Roth and Raymond Chandler; found echoes in the work of performers from Jelly Roll Morton to Lana Del Rey; and continued to rewrite both its own story and that of the country at large in the hands of dramatists and filmmakers from the 1920s to John Collins's 2006 Gatz and Baz Luhrmann's critically reviled (here celebrated) 2013 movie version - the fourth, so far.
©2020 Greil Marcus (P)2020 Tantor
Northwest Corner
Summary
The New York Times Book Review called Reservation Road “a triumph”, and the novel was universally acclaimed. Now, in a brilliant literary performance by one of our most compelling and compassionate writers, John Burnham Schwartz reintroduces us to Reservation Road’s unforgettable characters in a superb new work of fiction that stands magnificently on its own. Northwest Corner is a riveting story about the complex, fierce, ultimately inspiring resilience of families in the face of life’s most difficult and unexpected challenges. Twelve years after a tragic accident and a cover-up that led to prison time, Dwight Arno, now 50, is a man who has started over without exactly moving on. Living alone in California, haunted yet keeping his head down, Dwight manages a sporting-goods store and dates a woman to whom he hasn’t revealed the truth about his past. Then an unexpected arrival throws his carefully neutralized life into turmoil and exposes all that he’s hidden. Sam, Dwight’s estranged college-age son, has shown up without warning, fleeing a devastating incident in his own life. In its way, Sam’s sense of guilt is as crushing as his father’s. As the two men are forced to confront their similar natures and their half-buried hopes for connection, they must also search for redemption and love. In turn, they dramatically transform the lives of the women around them: the ex-wives, mothers, and lovers they have turned to in their desperate attempts to somehow rewrite, outrun, or eradicate the past. Told in the resonant voices of everyday people gripped in the emotional riptide of lived life, Northwest Corner is at once tough and heart-lifting, an urgent, powerful story about family bonds that can never be broken and the wayward roads that lead us back to those we love.
©2011 John Burnham Schwartz (P)2011 Random House