Traber Burns has narrated 111 audiobooks on Listento.it by 93 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 1,827 ratings. The most-rated is Sword of Destiny.
Calendar of Crime
Summary
In the merry month of May, Ellery Queen made a trek to Gettysburg to witness an annual celebration - and an annual murder. February found the ingenious Ellery locked in a furious battle of wits with a dead US president. These are but two of the 12 appointments with crime that make up Queen's baffling calendar of conundrums. Each elegant enigma ticks off all the surprise and excitement that have made Queen the dean of American detective fiction. Stories include: "The Inner Circle," "The President's Half Dime", "The Ides of Michael Magoon", "The Emperor's Dice", "The Gettysburg Bugle", "The Medical Finger", "The Fallen Angel", "The Needle's Eye", "The Three Rs", "The Dead Cat", "The Telltale Bottle", and "The Dauphin's Doll".
©2015 Ellery Queen (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Dark Places
Summary
At the tail end of 1967, the Parker family once again finds it impossible to hide from a world spinning out of control. Fourteen-year-old Top still can't fit in with their Center Springs, Texas, community, and his near-twin cousin, Pepper, does the only thing she can conceive to escape her own demons: she joins the Flower Children flocking to California - just as three businessmen are murdered in the Red River bottoms on the same night as a deadly hit and run. Constable Ned Parker wonders if these crimes are connected, but when Pepper disappears, he follows, leaving the investigation in the hands of Sheriff Cody Parker, who hires Deputy Anna Sloan, an investigator with an eye for detail. Following her instincts, she trails killers through a world nearly forgotten, the hunt's backdrop one of continuous rain, gloomy skies, and floods. When an ambush nearly kills her, the investigation accelerates into gunfire, chases, and hair-raising suspense while out on Route 66 to California, a man named Crow isn't what he seems. Lies, deception, and a band of outlaw motorcyclists prove to the Parkers that no matter where you turn, no matter what you do, the world is full of such darkness that even grandmothers are capable of unspeakable deeds.
©2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2015 Blackstone Audiobooks
Four Years in the Rockies
Summary
James Marsh's Four Years in the Rockies gives brilliant insight into the life of Isaac P. Rose, a man who forged his own path in the wilderness of the far west. This thrilling account of one mountain man's life at the height of the 19th-century fur industry follows Rose as he overcomes adversity, learns from those around him, and becomes one of the most successful trappers of the Rockies. During the course of these years, Rose survives perilous weather conditions, fends off some of the most dangerous animals in North America, and nearly loses an arm during a skirmish with a group of Native Americans. Four Years in the Rockies is essential listening for anyone interested in the 19th-century fur trade and the adventurers who risked their lives to be part of it.
Public Domain (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Reducing Gun Violence in America
Summary
Amid a growing consensus that the staggering toll of gun violence in the United States is an urgent public health issue, the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health has convened experts on gun policy and violence from the United States and selected other countries to summarize relevant research and its implications for policymakers and concerned citizens. Legal scholars weigh in on the constitutionality of recommended policies, and researchers present new data on public support for a wide array of policies designed to reduce gun violence. Collected for the first time in one volume, this reliable empirical research and legal analysis will inform the policy debate by helping lawmakers and opinion leaders identify the policy changes that are most likely to reduce gun violence in the United States. Researchers draw on new and existing studies on US gun policies to demonstrate both the weaknesses of current federal gun policies and the efficacy of various state laws designed to reduce firearm availability to high-risk groups. By analyzing scientific and legal data, the contributors provide evidence in support of enhanced regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers, background checks for private sales, and purchaser licensing. Lessons from bans of assault weapons and of large-capacity magazines are considered, as is the promise of "smart guns", which could be fired only by authorized users. Compelling case studies from Australia, Scotland, and Brazil demonstrate effective policy responses to gun violence that have led to significant reductions in gun-related deaths. The book concludes with data on public support for strengthening gun laws and Second Amendment considerations.
©2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Queens Full
Summary
Since his first novel, Ellery Queen has been in the top ranks of the world's detective-story writers. He has been equally successful with short stories and novelettes written for magazines. This rare volume is a collection of some of Queen's best, containing three novelettes and two short stories. The stories include "The Death of Don Juan", "The Wrightsville Heirs", "The Case Against Carroll", "E = Murder", and "Diamonds in Paradise". Ellery Queen stars in all of them, making this collection a must-listen for mystery fans.
©2015 Ellery Queen (P)2015 Blackstone Audio
Unraveled
Summary
The small, rural northeast Texas community of Center Springs has seen its share of troubles during the 1960s, everything from kidnapping and murder to bank robbery. By 1968, the residents think life has finally quieted down, but they find their peaceful way of life is quickly spinning out of control as a decades-long family feud between the Clays and Mayfields once again flares to life. Fourteen-year-old Top Parker, who lives with his grandparents, Constable Ned Parker and Miss Becky, in a little farmhouse near the Red River, is caught up in another adult situation sparked by a mysterious fatal car accident involving the white mayor of Chisum and his black female assistant. Questions and accusations arise about their relationship as the families wreak vengeance on each other. But what is the significance of a man calling himself the Wraith, who moves through the region at will, invading homes and watching the Parkers? What is Maggie Clay's secret - that she is half white and married to a black man with a criminal past? And was Mayor Frank Clay, the supposed only bright spot in a dark and cruel family, really what everyone thought he was? It's a busy time for Sheriff Cody Parker, who finds himself a possible suspect in the murder of several residents. He takes the advice from his deputy, John Washington, and removes himself from the investigation, giving free reign to both John and Deputy Anna Sloan as they try to unravel the answers by following different paths. The ending will leave you staggered, as the families clash on a small battlefield and the killer is finally revealed in a most unexpected way. These aren't the 1960s that most Baby Boomers remember.
©2016 Reavis Z. Wortham (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Vengeance Is Mine
Summary
In October of 1967, the Summer of Love is history, rock and roll is dark and revolutionary, and people in the small east Texas community of Center Springs simply want to live their lives as quietly as possible. But a handsome darkness in the form of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Agrioli has left the business to hide out in their tiny backwater settlement with his blond bombshell girlfriend. Two years earlier, Agrioli met newlyweds Cody and Norma Faye Parker in a Vegas casino and heard their enthusiastic descriptions of the perfect place to settle down and raise a family. At least it was perfect, before their peaceful world found itself in the crosshairs of a coming confrontation. Back in Center Springs, thirteen-year-old Top Parker has what his grandmother, Miss Becky, calls a poisoned gift: His dreams, though random and disconnected, always seem to come true. This time Top dreams he's a wagon hub with spokes converging from all directions. To him, the spokes symbolize that something is coming. He doesn't know their quiet community will soon be a combat zone when the gangsters arrive. But they're after something else, not Agrioli…yet. A sheriff crooked as a dog's hind leg, an unsolved murder in the river bottoms, counterfeit money, and a bank robbery all wrapped in a country Shakespearean comedy once again bring together Constables Ned and Cody Parker, Deputy John Washington, Judge O. C. Rains, and the rest of Wortham's real and sometimes wacky cast of characters.
©2014 Reavis Z. Wortham (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Mississippi Noir
Summary
In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present. Mississippi Noir features brand-new stories by Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, William Boyle, Megan Abbott, Jack Pendarvis, Dominiqua Dickey, Michael Kardos, Jamie Paige, Jimmy Cajoleas, Chris Offutt, Michael Farris Smith, Andrew Paul, Lee Durkee, Robert Busby, John M. Floyd, RaShell R. Smith-Spears, and Mary Miller.
©2016 Tom Franklin (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Ghost and the Femme Fatale
Summary
A film festival gone noir gives bookshop owner Penelope Thornton-McClure and her ghostly companion a big screen caper to solve in this Haunted Bookshop mystery from Cleo Coyle, writing as Alice Kimberly. The Movie Town Theater is holding its first ever Film Noir Festival, with Pen handling book sales for the guest speakers, including screen actress Hedda Geist. The legendary femme fatale has been out of the spotlight for decades. Unfortunately, the moment she steps back into it, she's nearly killed. Then other guests start to die, and Penelope wants to know why her little town's Film Noir weekend has taken a truly dark turn. With local police on the wrong track, Penelope enlists the help of Jack Shepard, private investigator. Okay, so Jack hasn't had a heartbeat since 1949, when he was gunned down in what is now Pen's store. But the hard-boiled ghost actually remembers Hedda's dark past, and Penelope's sure he can help solve this case - even if he and his license did expire more than 50 years ago....
©2008 Cleo Coyle (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Pucker Factor 10
Summary
“In 1963...there was no way I could have known, sitting in a classroom on that beautiful campus in Ohio, that by raising my hand I would be going to war in Vietnam and that I would see things, hear things, and do things that most people cannot imagine.” (James Joyce) The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives - such as the smoke bombing of Disneyland, the nickname given to a United States Army-sponsored compound for prostitution. Some of the pilots Joyce served with survived the war and went on to have careers with commercial airlines, and many were killed.
©2003 James Joyce (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Louis D. Brandeis
Summary
A riveting new examination of the leading progressive Supreme Court justice of his era. According to Jeffrey Rosen, Louis D. Brandeis was "the Jewish Jefferson", the greatest critic of what he called "the curse of bigness" in business and government since the author of the Declaration of Independence. Published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his Supreme Court confirmation on June 1, 1916, Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet argues that Brandeis was the most farseeing constitutional philosopher of the 20th century. In addition to writing the most famous article on the right to privacy, he also wrote the most important Supreme Court opinions about free speech, freedom from government surveillance, and freedom of thought and opinion. And as the leader of the American Zionist movement, he convinced Woodrow Wilson and the British government to recognize a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Combining narrative biography with a passionate argument for why Brandeis matters today, Rosen explores what Brandeis, the Jeffersonian prophet, can teach us about historic and contemporary questions involving the Constitution, monopoly, corporate and federal power, technology, privacy, free speech, and Zionism.
©2016 Jeffrey Rosen (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Unsung Eagles
Summary
The nearly half-million American air crewmen who served during World War II have almost disappeared. And so have their stories. Award-winning writer and former fighter pilot Jay A. Stout uses Unsung Eagles to save an exciting collection of those accounts from oblivion. These are not rehashed tales from the hoary icons of the war. Rather, they are stories from the masses of largely unrecognized men who - in the aggregate - actually won it. They are the recollections of your Uncle Frank who shared them only after having enjoyed a beer, of your old girlfriend’s grandfather who passed away about the same time she dumped you, and of the craggy guy who ran the town’s salvage yard, a dusty, fly-specked B-24 model hung over the counter. These are “everyman” accounts that are important but fast disappearing. Ray Crandall describes how he was nearly knocked into the Pacific Ocean by a heavy cruiser’s main battery during the second battle of the Philippine Sea. Jesse Barker, a displaced dive-bomber pilot, tells of dodging naval bombardments in the stinking mud of Guadalcanal. Bob Popeney relates how his friend and fellow A-20 pilot was blown out of formation by German anti-aircraft fire: “I could see the inside of the airplane - and I could see Nordstrom’s eyes. He looked confused...and then immediately he flipped up and went tumbling down.” The combat careers of 22 different pilots from all the services are captured in this book that captivates the listener not only as an engaging oral history but also by putting personal context into the great air battles of World War II.
©2013 Jay A. Stout (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing
The Adventures of Ellery Queen
Summary
In these ripping short stories, the mystery genre's greatest sleuth shows his chops. For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain - and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot touch: college students. Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries. In this audio, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin who targets acrobats, and New York's only cleanly shaven bearded lady. Criminals everywhere fear him, whether they work in mansions or back alleys. No mystery is too difficult for the man with the golden brain. This story collection includes "The African Traveler", "The Mad Tea-Party", "The Seven Black Cats", "The Hanging Acrobat", "The Two-Headed Dog", "The One-Penny Black", "The Bearded Lady", "The Three Lame Men", "The Invisible Lover", "The Teakwood Case", and "The Glass-Domed Clock".
©1933, 1934 Ellery Queen. © renewed by Ellery Queen. (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Crucible of Command
Summary
A dual biography of two iconic leaders: how they fought a bloody, brutal war then forged a lasting peace that fundamentally changed our nation. They met in person only four times, yet these two men determined the outcome of the Civil War and cast competing styles for the reunited nation. Each the subject of innumerable biographies, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have never before been paired as they are here. Exploring their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political, and military worlds, William C. Davis finds surprising similarities between the two men as well as new perspectives on how their lives prepared them for the war they fought and influenced how they fought it. Davis reveals Lee's sense of failure before the war, Grant's optimism during disaster, and the sophisticated social and political instincts that each had when waging a war between democracies.
©2015 William C. Davis (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The New Deal
Summary
New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Michael Hiltzik tells the epic story of the New Deal through the outsized personalities of the people who fought for it, opposed it, and benefited from it, rendering vital lessons for our own time. As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus. In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life. Rather than the product of a single ideology, the New Deal emerged from the clash of ideas held by advisors from very different backgrounds. With historical and psychological insight, Hiltzik sheds light on the lives of the gargantuan characters who fought for and against it: Herbert Hoover, whose own administration gave birth to many of the programs that would become part of the New Deal; General Hugh Johnson, the West Pointer whose pugnacious leadership of the National Recovery Administration symbolized the New Deal for millions of Americans; Harry Hopkins, whose closeness to Roosevelt earned him the moniker “deputy president”; and many other fascinating figures. What emerges is a saga of how FDR managed to recast the federal government into something that still inspires: a unifying structure with the concept of social justice at its heart.
©2011 Michael Hiltzik (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Greasy Grass
Summary
Johnny D. Boggs turns the battlefield itself into a character in this historical retelling of Custer's Last Stand, when George Custer led most of his command to annihilation at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in southern Montana in 1876. More than 40 first-person narratives are used - Indian and white, military and civilian, men and women - to paint a panorama of the battle itself. Boggs brings the events and personalities of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to life in a series of first-hand accounts.
©2018 Johnny D. Boggs (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Hidden Nazi
Summary
He's the worst Nazi war criminal you've never heard of Sidekick to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and supervisor of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, General Hans Kammler was responsible for the construction of Hitler's slave labor sites and concentration camps. He personally altered the design of Auschwitz to increase crowding, ensuring that epidemic diseases would complement the work of the gas chambers. Why has the world forgotten this monster? Kammler was declared dead after the war. But the aide who testified to Kammler's supposed "suicide" never produced the general's dog tags or any other proof of death. Dean Reuter, Colm Lowery, and Keith Chester have spent decades on the trail of the elusive Kammler, uncovering documents unseen since the 1940s and visiting the purported site of Kammler's death, now in the Czech Republic. Their astonishing discovery: US government documents prove that Hans Kammler was in American custody for months after the war - well after his officially declared suicide. And what happened to him after that? Kammler was kept out of public view, never indicted or tried, but to what end? Did he cooperate with Nuremberg prosecutors investigating Nazi war crimes? Was he protected so the United States could benefit from his intimate knowledge of the Nazi rocket program and Germany's secret weapons? The Hidden Nazi is true history more harrowing - and shocking - than the most thrilling fiction.
©2019 Dean Reuter, Dr. Colm Lowery, and Keith Chester (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
QBI
Summary
Queen's Bureau of Investigation is now open for business - and in each department of this new enterprise, Ellery finds ample opportunity to exercise the brilliant, ingenious, and at times startling talents of his crime-lab mind. For to the bureau come some of the most plaguey cases in Queen's career. In "The Three Widows", two of Theodore Hood's wealthy widow daughters, as well as his own widow, are caught in a murder that Ellery reluctantly relegated to the Impossible Crime Department. In "The Myna Birds", old Mrs. Andrus' bequest of a million dollars to 38 observant and talkative birds sets off a chain of violent events leading straight to the Embezzlement Department - and the only bird detective on record! "A Question of Honor" is a matter of considerable international delicacy, involving indiscreet letters, a Shakespearean scholar from Scotland Yard, and a crime at once assigned to the Suicide Department. Numerous other criminals, crimes, follies, and felonies find their way to the bailiwicks of the QBI as well. From the files of the Buried Treasure Department comes "Miser's Gold"; from the Narcotics Department, "The Black Ledger"; from the Kidnapping Department, "Child Missing!"; and many others. In each case, Ellery Queen demonstrates the powers that make him unique among detectives.
©2015 Ellery Queen (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Hearts Touched by Fire
Summary
In July 1883, just a few days after the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a group of editors at the Century magazine engaged in a lively argument: Which Civil War battle was the bloodiest battle of them all? One claimed it was Chickamauga, another Cold Harbor. The argument inspired a brainstorm: Why not let the magazine’s 125,000 readers in on the conversation by offering “a series of papers on some of the great battles of the war, to be written by officers in command on both sides.” The articles would be written by generals, Union and Confederate alike, who had commanded the engagements two decades earlier—“or, if he were not living,” by “the person most entitled to speak for him or in his place.” The pieces would present both sides of each major battle and would be fair and free of politics. Now, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the most enduring entries from the classic four-volume series Battles and Leaders of the Civil War have been edited and merged into one definitive volume. Here are the best of the immortal first-person accounts of the Civil War originally published in the pages of the Century magazine more than a hundred years ago. Hearts Touched by Fire offers stunning accounts of the war’s great battles written by the men who planned, fought, and witnessed them, from leaders such as General Ulysses S. Grant, General George McClellan, and Confederate captain Clement Sulivane to men of lesser rank. This collection also features new year-by-year introductions by esteemed historians, including James M. McPherson, Craig L. Symonds, and James I. Robertson, Jr., who cast wise modern eyes on the cataclysm that changed America and that would go down as the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history. No one interested in our country’s past will want to be without this collection of the most popular and influential first-person Civil War memoirs ever published.
©2011 Harold Holzer; Compilation 2011 by Random House, Inc.; 1861 part introduction 2011 by Craig L. Symonds; 1862 part introduction 2011 by Stephen Sears; 1863 part introduction 2011 by James M. McPherson; 1864 part introduction 2011 by Joan Waugh; 1865 part introduction 2011 by James I. Robertson (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Give-a-Damn Jones
Summary
Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren't all heroes. Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He's a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything -or anyone - could be the fuse to ignite them: a recently released convict trying to prove his innocence, a prominent cattleman who craves respect at any cost, a wily traveling dentist at odds with a violent local blacksmith, or a firebrand of an editor who is determined to unlock the town's secrets. Jones walks into the middle of it all, and this time, he may be the hero that this town needs. Full cast of narrators include Sam Osheroff, Chris Abell, Eddie Lopez, Grover Gardner, Jim Meskimen, Traber Burns, Nick Sullivan, Patrick Lawlor, Donald Corren, John Lescault, Johnny Heller, R. C. Bray, William Hughes, Armando Duran, and Michael Kramer.
©2018 Bill Pronzini (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.