Showing results by narrator "Duffy Weber" in All Categories

A troll in a pinstriped suit walks into a bar. He's looking for Alex Southerland, private investigator and summoner of elementals. A gorgeous dame is going to come to Southerland with a case, and the troll tells him that he is going to turn the case down - or else! But Southerland doesn't respond well to threats. Besides, he needs the dough! Framed for a murder he didn't commit, Southerland weaves his way from seedy neighborhoods to the dazzling lights of downtown - and from one savage beating to the next - to clear his name and uncover a shocking secret.

Years ago, while serving in the Borderland, Alexander Southerland watched helplessly as his friend was terrorized and murdered by the Sihuanaba, a mysterious avenging spirit known as the Woman in White. Now an established private investigator in the teeming metropolis of Yerba City, Southerland finds himself on a collision course with this specter from his past. As the detective tries to solve the riddle of a beautiful nightclub singer’s death, Southerland finds himself battling corruption, temptation, betrayal - and deadly horrors from his own nightmares!

Alexander Southerland is hired to discover how a teenage boy is disappearing at night without passing through any doors or windows. Next thing Southerland knows, he’s shackled to an altar while a hungry spirit prepares to sacrifice him to “the toothless one who brings nothing but good.” Southerland soon finds himself negotiating a minefield of dream-hopping supernatural spirits, howler monkeys, a homicidal client, a shotgun-wielding spinster, and a whistling demon.

Alex Southerland is back, along with Smokey and Badass. Our hardboiled private dick and elementalist is searching the mean streets of the city for the secret behind a deadly curse. It all starts during a rare Yerba City heat wave when a witch with strange snake tats winding up her gams walks into his office to report that she has committed a murder. Thing is, the murdered man isn't dead, and, well, it's complicated.

Alexander Southerland knew Cindy Shipper for only the briefest of days, but his memory of the alluring femme fatale has haunted his dreams ever since. Now Cindy’s literal ghost has come rapping on his bedroom window, seeking the reasons behind her brutal demise. The mystery of Cindy’s death seems obvious to Southerland, but the working-class P.I. quickly learns a valuable lesson: when it comes to sudden death, nothing is ever simple.

A routine case of industrial espionage pitches hardboiled PI Alexander Southerland headlong into a maelstrom of shadowy political intrigue and deadly supernatural mayhem - not to mention some malevolent owls and the mysterious "boy who talks backwards"! After his exposure of a white-collar thief has harrowing consequences, a guilt-ridden and disconsolate Southerland roams the mean streets and dark alleys of Yerba City seeking to uncover a secret so stunning - so staggering - that just knowing it could unravel the bonds that keep the social order from dissolving into chaos!

Crawford the were-rat checks into a shady hotel and promptly stumbles over a dead man. A mysterious troll is obsessed with finding the dagger that killed him—a dagger possessed by a demon! The demon denies that he is a demon and is obsessed with regaining his freedom. Meanwhile, the hotel’s night clerk is obsessed with the hooker on the third floor. Crawford is obsessed with what’s in the hooker’s room: a solid gold statuette of a demon-slaying goddess! Crawford has checked in, but when obsessions collide, does he have any hope of checking out?

Coming off a heartbreaking whirlwind relationship, a despondent Alexander Southerland returns to the streets of Yerba City when he hears that an old acquaintance is a person of interest in the murder of an unregistered adaro nymph.

Washed up pitching prospect, Rock Cobbler, now a hotshot detective with the Santa Lacrimosa PD likes working alone as much as he likes bourbon. That is to say, a lot.

Shenanigans and surprises ensue when a hyperactive middle-age businessman hears about an epidemic reaching the small island where he grew up. He immediately volunteers himself AND his bicycle courier employees to go chasing around the isle as volunteer health services personnel for the relief effort's logistics team! Meanwhile, Millie, a Drachen restaurateur and cook extraordinaire, and her half-Drachen daughter are helping to coordinate the effort island-side and anticipating the arrival of Millie's oldest, dearest friend and his oddball crew.

Anthropologist Claire El-Badawy has spent the last 10 years of her life applying for grants for an Amazon jungle expedition. She wants to prove her theory of the transatlantic connection between Africa and South America that existed 5,000 years ago. Owen Macleod’s life has been one long trek after another, guiding tourists and aiding the indigenous people of the forest against the mining companies. When Owen hears of the opportunity to break free of the tourist trade, he jumps at it. Soon, the anthropologist and the jungle guide are thrown together in pursuit of their own dreams.

Ingefær vod Renku is beset by doubts over the death of her parents and seeks to find answers in her home village. While there, her primary suspect is murdered, and she’s consigned to hunt the assassin. The situation turns deadly for the Ære Warrior as she attempts to pierce the Assassin’s Guild. Casualties abound, chief of which is her trust in her god and her order. Meanwhile, Rory Belkin chases after Valexi in Hjulstadt, the thug who hired bandits to kill him.

Glitzy new tech and exciting computer gizmos galore are being showcased at Verity Corp's annual trade convention, and they really want Daavi to attend. It's too bad he's not going to. Having shouldered enough responsibility to last several lifetimes, Millie and Daavi finally take a well-earned break. Instead, he's trusting Fitz, Fran, and Stewart to take his place, in the hopes that they'll stumble across something that will finally help them all break into a new market, back home.

Elton is in the throes of a dilemma. His supernatural experiences might get him diagnosed as a schizophrenic. This would, of course, inevitably lead to what he fears the most—being put on medication that would entail potentially serious side-effects. He would prefer to learn to master these other-worldly experiences on his own, thereby keeping them secret, both for his own personal development, and in order to avoid inviting "the system" into his life.

That includes Daavi, to run communications, and their new darling, Millie, to perform survey, supply, and search flights with her little remote control aircraft. The staging area is a busy huge warehouse by the port, but all isn't as it seems. The warehouse staff seem more interested in keeping the relief personnel away from something than helping with the injured and homeless who are pouring in.

Inspired by real-life events, Ronald Bagliere's Out of the Rubble takes place in Kathmandu, Nepal, after the devastating earthquake of 2015. When Binod and Sila Thapa lose their children to human traffickers, Binod's friend Mick Hanson and his girlfriend come to their aid. But with the devastation of the city and the authorities overwhelmed from the quake, finding the children seems impossible.

Imagine this: you’re 60 years old, divorced, broke. You’ve squandered away being the husband and father you should’ve been to your wife and children in your quest for status among your architect peers. Don't worry: that’s all about to change. Unfortunate encounters with large trucks on the highway have a way of altering your plans, like jettisoning you back into the past to wake up next to a woman you dated in college. You’re also about to realize she hasn’t aged a day - and neither have you. Thirty years stripped away, just like that.

The news is grim. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has threatened to attack Iran if they don’t stop enriching uranium. United States' interests back the threat. In LaBarge’s latest novel, Lightning Strikes Twice, US Navy pilots, aboard the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), Captain “Sweetwater” Sullivan and LT “BigHands” Johnson, are called upon to carry out the impossible mission of deterring the Iranian threat under daunting circumstances.

Ignoring all past experience with the term "adventure", Millie and Daavi have signed on for one. Not quite neglecting the fact she is preparing for a big promotional event at her restaurant, which dignitaries and other very important people are likely to attend, Millie dons a rather charming straw hat and joins Daavi as he runs off to a deserted, rocky, sun-bleached isle, neighboring her own.

They're taking Molly and Merrin - Millie and Daavi's new twins - packing their bags, and hopping a boat headed to Belvique for their assignment. Daavi's been hired, along his accounting systems designer Fran, and Motormouth - Fran's friend and interpreter - to set up accounting systems for three tiny neighboring countries.