Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle De Cuir" in All Categories

Hercule Poirot receives an urgent cry for help from a client summoning him to France. But he is too late, and arrives to find his client face down in a shallow grave on a golf course, brutally stabbed to death, and dressed in a too-large overcoat with an impassioned love letter in the pocket. With a long line of suspects including the victim's wife, his embittered son, and his mistress, Poirot works to unravel the mystery. But before Poirot can discover the meaning of the clues, a second, identically murdered corpse is found.

Nothing is as it seems. Frey's life is a lie. She doesn't remember being bound from magic. She didn't intend to discover this dangerous secret, to get entangled in Council business. But she did. And now she's on the run. With the aid of a stranger, she discovers a world beyond the elves who bound her. But it's a world of shadows and dark magic, a world she's been warned not to trust. The farther she strays, the more she finds a forgotten past. As she fights to reclaim her true identity, Council trackers hunt her down.

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come.

Gerald Wade is among the many invited to the Chimneys estate for a party. Rented by Sir Oswald and Lady Coote for the season, it is rather the place to be. Unfortunately, during his stay there Gerry has garnered the teasing of his friends for a particular talent of his: to oversleep. One day the set decides to “fix” the matter with a little joke. The plan is to set out eight alarm clocks in Gerry’s room, all set to different times … as early as 6:30 a.m.! When they go to check on him, his friends discover that Gerry hasn’t overslept this time. In fact, he has been murdered.

When tsarist soldiers fire at a group of peaceful village protestors and kill his young bride, Pavel dedicates his life to overthrowing the Romanovs. Pavel's underground group assassinates the Grand Duke, changing the life of the Grand Duchess Elisavyeta forever.

It is the year 2049, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Tania Deeley has always been told that she's a rarity: a human child in a world where most children are sophisticated androids manufactured by Oxted Corporation. When a decline in global fertility ensued, it was the creation of these near-perfect human copies, called teknoids, that helped to prevent the utter collapse of society.

Who is the Crimson Empress, and what does her conquest of the Named Lands really mean? Who holds the keys to the Moon Wizard’s Tower? The plots within plots are expanding as the characters seek their way out of the maze of intrigue. The world is expanding as they discover lands beyond their previous carefully controlled knowledge. Hidden truths reveal even deeper truths, and nothing is as it seemed to be.

Meet Stellar - an urban crime-fighter who tackles injustice with swift and decisive action, carrying the burden of freeing society from oppression, fighting for the weak and wounded. She is brave. She is beautiful. She is just a comic book character…or at least she was. Macy Davis is an athletic high school student with an eye for Patrick Newell, the young artist who created Stellar. When Macy’s best friend, Keri Cartwright, discovers Patrick’s comic book heroine, she convinces Macy to masquerade as Stellar.

In stories like "A Night in the Cemetery," "Night of Horror," and "Murder," not only will Chekhov's dark humor and twisted crimes satisfy even the most hardboiled of mystery fans, but readers will again appreciate the penetrating, absurdist insight into the human condition that only Chekhov can bring. Whether it is the death of a young amateur playwright at the hands of an editor who hates bad writing, or a drunken civil servant who ends up trapped in a graveyard, these stories overflow with the unforgettable characters and unique sensibility that will forever make Chekhov one of the most fascinating figures in literature.

In Carbide Tipped Pens,over a dozen of today's most creative imaginations explore these frontiers, carrying on the grand tradition of such legendary masters as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and John W. Campbell, while bringing hard science fiction into the 21st century by extrapolating from the latest scientific developments and discoveries.

At first blush, Widdershins is a conventional haunted house story involving an unsuccessful writer who moves into an empty house in hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend, and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. It can be interpreted as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious, possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a psychotic outbreak culminating in catatonia and murder, told from the psychotic subject’s view.

Goon Squad is set in a version of modern-day Manchester. Its biggest divergence from the real city is that it - along with most other large urban centers - has a team of superheroes to protect it against unusual threats with which the conventional forces of law and order would have problems.

The year is 1666. The king and parliament vie for power, fighting one another with politics and armies alike. Below, the faerie court has enemies of its own. The old ways are breaking down, and no one knows what will rise in their place. But now, a greater threat has come, one that could destroy everything. In the house of a sleeping baker, a spark leaps free of the oven - and ignites a blaze that will burn London to the ground.

The Pyrénées, France, 1939. Twenty-year-old Sylvie Laget has found the one she wants to be with forever. With war looming, she pledges her heart to a young man on a neighboring farm and rebels against her religious upbringing by consummating their relationship. But when her lover leaves to fight the Nazis, her joy is shattered by heartache. Burying her pain by posing as a nun to work with the resistance (the Maquis) and help Allied forces, Sylvie is devastated by news of her beloved’s death.

Old Roger Melton has died, leaving behind one of the greatest fortunes in Europe. His arrogant relative Ernest Melton expects to be the heir, but, much to the family's surprise, Roger leaves his vast estate to his obscure young nephew, Rupert Sent Leger. But Rupert's newfound wealth comes with strange conditions attached, one of which is that he must inhabit the old castle of Vissarion in the remote Balkan nation known as the Land of the Blue Mountains.

On a train from Los Angeles to Chicago, Kitten learns that Viv is planning to offer her roommate a part that was meant for her. If she lets him betray her, her career will be over. But fight for the part and she will be fighting for her life as well.

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.

Imagine… Ghosts, gods, and devils - heavens and hells - cities in the sky and cities beneath the sea. Time machines, spaceships - certainly you can imagine Martians, but what about interplanetary vampires? Or a mouse that isn't a mouse? Honeymoon in Hell proves that Fredric Brown has a special vision, a sight beyond our wildest nightmares, a perception of things we couldn't even begin to imagine.

All Cyn wants is justice. Kolya Kurev murdered her family in cold blood and got away with it. Single-minded in her determination, Cyn becomes the killer she needs to be. Until she meets Lee, a man also deeply wronged by Kurev. Cyn's new problem? Lee. Lee is stealing her revenge and screwing with the carefully carved life she’s made for herself. As if his mere presence and counter-productive ambitions weren’t enough, he’s going to get her caught.