Books to Die For! Podcast

After years of personal and professional turmoil, things are finally looking up for Columbus, Ohio, private eye Andy Hayes. As Sick to Death opens, Andy is relishing his new gig: a drama-free, family-friendly stint as a guard at the Columbus Museum of Art. What could be better than regular hours, a steady paycheck, and an attractive coworker who may be just as interested in him as he is in her? Right on schedule, Andy’s newfound equilibrium comes crashing down when he interrupts the theft of a painting by famed Ashcan school realist George Bellows—and is promptly fired for breaking museum protocols. Helping him thwart the robbers is a young woman whom Andy has caught staring at him several times at the museum. To his shock, she reveals she’s an adult daughter he never knew he had, the result of a one-night stand during his misspent youth a quarter century earlier. But Alex Rutledge, about to enter the Columbus Police Academy, isn’t looking for family time. She wants to hire her newly discovered father to find the driver who killed her mother, Kate, five months earlier in a still unsolved hit-skip accident. Even as Andy reels from this personal development, he uncovers troubling details about Kate’s death that increasingly point toward murder and an angry anti-vax sentiment roiling below the surface at the hospital where she worked. Complicating Andy’s case, he finds himself in the crosshairs of an FBI investigation into the attempted art theft. With time running out and his and Alex’s lives on the line, Andy rushes to defend his reputation as a private eye and find Kate’s killer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the award-winning author of Fragile Brilliance comes another gripping Ronan McCullough thriller. Recovering from the emotional and physical damage of his last case, Ronan McCullough is trying to put his life back together. But when a federal agent's charred remains surface, linked to a professor's encrypted money laundering scheme, Ronan becomes embroiled in a high-stakes game of life and death with someone who is willing to kill everyone that knows anything about the encryption codes. Ronan soon uncovers several dark secrets and learns that nobody is being honest with him, including the people he trusts the most. When the encryption codes are stolen and Ronan learns their real purpose, he finds himself in a race to stop a plan that will make it nearly impossible to stop the funding of dangerous crimes. As the body count rises and secrets are unearthed, Ronan must navigate a web of deceit to uncover the truth. How will Ronan succeed when the main suspect is a set of numbers? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Preston & Child continue their #1 bestselling series featuring FBI Special Agent Pendergast and Constance Greene, as they take a final stand against New York’s deadliest serial killer: Pendergast’s own ancestor…and Constance’s greatest enemy. A desperate bargain is broken… Constance Greene confronts Manhattan’s most dangerous serial killer, Enoch Leng, bartering for her sister's life – but she is betrayed and turned away empty-handed, incandescent with rage. A clever trap is set… Unknown to Leng, Pendergast’s brother, Diogenes, appears unexpectedly, offering to help—for mysterious reasons of his own. Disguised as a cleric, Diogenes establishes himself in New York's notorious Five Points slum, manipulating events like a chess master, watching Leng’s every move…and awaiting his own chance to strike. A vengeful angel will not be deterred… Meanwhile, as Pendergast focuses on saving the unstable Constance in her fanatical quest for vengeance, she strikes out on her own: to rescue her beloved siblings from a tragic fate and take savage retribution on Leng. But Leng is one step ahead and has a surprise for them all… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this heart-pounding debut thriller for fans of Lisa Jewell and Celeste Ng, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present. . . . Annie “Anh Le” Shaw grew up poor, but seems to have it all now: a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie’s mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie’s carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she’d vanquished years ago, comes roaring back—but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling around in Annie’s brain might actually be coming true. A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room—naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn’t have answers. All she knows is this: She will do anything to protect her daughter—even if it means losing herself. With dizzying twists, You Know What You Did is both a harrowing thriller and a heartfelt exploration of the refugee experience, the legacies we leave for our children, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since childhood, David Harris has suffered from debilitating nightmares. He has sought the advice of psychiatrists and other health professionals without obtaining any relief. When he meets an attractive young psychic, Emma Jackson, she encourages him to seek the help of her friend Anna Tungsten, a hypnotherapist. During an emotionally charged past life regression, David learns he was murdered in his most recent past life, thirty years earlier. When David realizes his murderer is still alive, he cannot move on and a build a new life with Emma until he has exacted revenge and stopped the murderer from killing again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicky Sullivan is the resident manager of a sober living home in Chicago. There she rides herd on ten newly sober addicts and alcoholics, trying to point them in the right direction while keeping their chaos to a minimum. But when one of her residents is murdered, Nicky turns to the investigative skills honed during her past career as a homicide detective. She calls on her old police partner who has been assigned the murder investigation along with his new partner, a woman beautiful enough to give Nicky pause. The body count starts to mount as it becomes clear a serial killer is at work, targeting newly relapsed women, all of whom have some connection to Nicky. Each death makes her feel she’s wielded the knife herself. In the midst of the tragedy, she finds herself falling in love. With the lives of fragile women in the balance, Nicky finds her own sobriety threatened. Can Nicky save her lover and find the killer? How many others must die before she does Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can run. You can hide. But in the end, the past catches up with you. Lana, a young mother who suffered a traumatic event 11 years ago, has been living under an assumed name. When she visits her hometown to check if it’s safe to reclaim her identity, Lana suffers several mishaps. Then her parents are killed in a car crash. Lana blames herself and her past mistakes until she discovers her mom and dad weren’t who they claimed to be, leading her to suspect their secrets may be responsible for their deaths. Lana returns to her family’s native Croatian village to visit her grandmother in hopes of learning the truth about her parents and the reason they died. When she meets the villagers, they slam their doors in Lana’s face at the mention of her father. Meanwhile, the near misses that happened back home follow her to Croatia, as does a tall, dark stranger. Lana probes into the village’s past and uncovers a cold case and a decades old curse, bringing out the ghosts of the past and putting herself in the same danger her parents ran from years ago. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers. It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State. But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return. The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Jersey State Trooper Jon Mazer has been charged with killing Black investigative reporter Stewart Marshall in a racially charged, headline-making murder. The evidence against criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe’s new client is overwhelming. The gun used is Mazer’s off-duty weapon. Fingerprints and carpet fibers link Mazer to the crime. And Mazer was patrolling Marshall’s neighborhood shortly before the victim took three bullets to the chest. Mazer’s argument? He’s a gay officer being set up to take the fall in an even bigger story. Mazer swears he was a secret source for Marshall’s exposé about the Lords of Discipline. The covert gang operating within the New Jersey State Police is notorious for enforcing their own code of harassing women, framing minorities, and out-powering any troopers who don’t play their rogue and racist games. With everyone from the governor to the county prosecutor on the wrong side of justice, Erin and her partner, Duane Swisher, are prepared to do anything to make sure Mazer doesn’t become another victim. As Erin deals with an intensely personal issue at home, and faces an uphill battle to prove her client’s innocence, both she and Duane find themselves mired in a conspiracy of corruption deeper than they imagined—and far more dangerous than they feared. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A writer’s search for her missing friend becomes a real-life thriller in a twisting novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of These Toxic Things. Bailey Meadows has just moved into the remote Topanga Canyon home of thriller author Jack Beckham. As his writer-in-residence, she’s supposed to help him once again reach the bestseller list. But she’s not there to write a thriller—she’s there to find Sam Morris, a community leader dedicated to finding missing people, who has disappeared in the canyon surrounding Beckham’s property. The missing woman was last seen in the drought-stricken forest known for wildfires and mountain lions. Each new day, Bailey learns just how dangerous these canyons are—for the other women who have also gone missing here…and for her. Could these missing women be linked to strange events that occurred decades ago at the Beckham estate? As fire season in the canyons approaches, Bailey must race to unravel the truth from fiction before she becomes the next woman lost in the forest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man's body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of "shadow men," blackmailers who extorted their victims' moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder? For sixteen months, the media fueled a firestorm of speculation. Unscrupulous criminal attorneys, fame-seeking chorus girls, con artists, and misogynistic millionaires harnessed the power of the press to shape public perception. New York governor and future presidential candidate Al Smith and editor of the Daily News Joseph Medill Patterson leveraged the investigation to further professional ambitions. Famous figures like Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, and F. Scott Fitzgerald weighed in. As the bereaved working-class Peters family sought to bring the callous Ward to justice, America watched enraptured. Capturing the extraordinary twists and turns of the case, Shadow Men conjures the excess and contradictions of the Jazz Age and reveals the true-crime origins of the media-led voyeurism that reverberates through contemporary life. It's a story of privilege and power that lays bare the social inequity that continues to influence our system of justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Set in 1982, Third Wheel is the story of a boy who relocates from the Midwest to Las Vegas. Outcast as a newcomer, Brady forges a bond with an older teenage neighbor, Mick. But when Mick invites an ambitious street-level drug dealer into their group, Brady learns that their choices could have dangerous consequences and threaten the lives of those he cares about. Emotionally driven and raw, Third Wheel is a literary thriller that follows a root-worthy underdog, Brady Wilks, as he brushes up against misguided teens, a Mexican drug cartel, and the Mob. With nowhere to turn and troubles at home, Brady finds his only comfort in an impossible romance until it becomes another vulnerability for others to exploit. The winner of six literary awards — including a Literary Titan Gold Book Award, Silver BookFest Award, and American Best BookFest Finalist Award — Richard R. Becker's debut novel is as suspenseful as it is unapologetic. This teenage crime story with heart hits home with older young adults, new adults, and anyone who remembers the 1980s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boston, 1985. With the late December cold comes a new job for ex-military operative turned private investigator Andy Roark. Boston judge Ambrose Messer is being blackmailed, and he needs Roark's help to stop the culprit. Messer is judging the bench trial of a chemical company accused of knowingly dumping chemical waste in an unsafe manner, causing birth defects and cancer. The evidence against them is overwhelming, but the message from the blackmailer is clear: If you don't want the world to know your secret, the chemical company wins. Messer doesn't want to let a threat corrupt his judgement . . . but then again, he could lose everything if his secret comes out! Judging his client to be a man with morals, Roark plunges into action, determined to find the blackmailer before it's too late. But the disturbing, unexpected revelations he uncovers make him a target of some very dangerous people, who soon seem determined not only to wreck the life of his client, but to destroy Roark's too . . . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Bestselling Author and Television Producer of MASTERS OF SEX, a True Story of Espionage and Mobsters, Based on the Never-Before-Released JFK Files, and Optioned by Warner Bros. Mafia Spies is the definitive account of America’s most remarkable espionage plots ever—with CIA agents, mob hitmen, “kompromat” sex, presidential indiscretion, and James Bond-like killing devices together in a top-secret mystery full of surprise twists and deadly intrigue. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination. Mafia Spies revolves around the outlaw friendship of these two mob buddies and their fascinating world of CIA spies, fellow Mafioso in Chicago, Cuban exile commandos in Miami, beautiful Hollywood women, famous entertainers like Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack in Las Vegas, Castro’s own spies in Havana and his double agents hidden in Florida, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI snooping, and the Kennedy administration’s “Get Castro” obsession in Washington. Thomas Maier is among the first to take full advantage of the National Archives’ 2017–18 release of the long-suppressed JFK files, many of which deal with the CIA’s top secret anti-Castro operation in Florida and Cuba. With several new investigative findings, Mafia Spies is a spy exposé, murder mystery, and shocking true story that recounts America’s first foray into the assassination business, a tale with profound impact for today’s Trump era. Who killed Johnny and Sam—and why wasn’t Castro assassinated despite the CIA’s many clandestine efforts? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A small town’s deadly past is exposed in the newest installment of the suspenseful National Forest K-9 series by Kathleen Donnelly. Until an avalanche ripped down a mountainside, exposing a serial killer’s dumping grounds, Antler Valley, Colorado, was a quiet town. Now Forest Service officer Maya Thompson and her beautiful K-9, Juniper, must catch the murderer before they become the next targets. With the neighboring town’s new overconfident sheriff deterring the entire investigation, a murderer on the loose and heartthrob deputy Josh Colton racing through her mind, Maya is at a crossroads. Josh is ready to go all in, but Maya has one foot out the door. As she lets her guard down, she needs to accept that she’s falling deeply in love with him, no matter how risky it may be. When evidence from the Antler Valley victims links the murders to deaths in other ski towns, secrets long buried are unearthed. Maya and Juniper must run toward an answer, though finding it might lead them directly into a fatal trap… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The pandemic has receded and life in the United States has returned to normal-or that's what the government insists. So what is causing residents in a remote religious compound in Idaho to drop dead in a grisly fashion? And why are prominent virologists meeting with untimely ends? Something-or someone-is killing the religious followers and scientists, and Newshound reporter Nik Byron is determined to find out what's behind the deaths. Could Xion Labs' top-secret vaccine program be connected? Nik suspects so, but he's being stonewalled at every turn. As he inches closer to the truth, Nik's professional enemies move to quash his investigation, threaten his career, and destroy his personal life. With his world crumbling, Nik finds one last lead: Puck Hall, a resolute, free-spirited young woman and Xion Labs researcher, who is soloing the Appalachian Trail. It's only when Puck, barely clinging to life after eluding trained killers, crawls out of the wilderness that Nik and a rookie reporter cobble together the nightmarish facts that bring the story into focus. Populated with old-school journalists, double-crossing politicians, black-ops assassins, and government secrets, Black Bird follows Nik Byron on a thrilling investigative journey along the Appalachian Trail, deep into the northern Rocky Mountains, over the Pacific Ocean, and eventually right to the doorstep of the White House. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A treasure so priceless, it's worth killing for… When Mark Hawkins is found dead in a seedy motel, police deem it an accidental overdose. But billionaire computer genius Avery Turner suspects there might be more to the story. Her old friend was on the trail of the legendary General's Gold, and now Avery is determined to pick up where he left off... Teaming up with Carter Mosley, a deep-sea shipwreck diver and adrenaline junkie turned social media sensation, Avery embarks on a dangerous quest for the treasure—and the truth. From Florida to Maine, and from the mountains of Virginia to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, they face treacherous gangs, man-eating sharks, and a world of deception and double-crosses. As they navigate hidden clues and uncertain allies, Avery and Carter must outwit their deadly adversaries and unravel the mystery surrounding the General's Gold. But in this high-stakes game, losing the treasure could cost them their lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

THE LAST STORY: The Murder of an Investigative Journalist in Las Vegas is an exclusive deep dive into a chilling true tale of sex, ambition, retribution, and homicide. Jeff German, a veteran Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter, was no stranger to controversy or the danger of his work. For more than four decades, he wrote stories relentlessly confronting the mob, corrupt politicians, and greedy bureaucrats. As a result, he was often threatened—enough that he and his friend and fellow investigative reporter, Arthur Kane, sometimes joked about reporting on these threats if they were ever acted upon. Then, in the spring of 2022, German received a tip about abuses at a little-known county office. His subsequent investigation unearthed a scandalous, sexually incriminating video of a rising politician. The resulting stories in the Review-Journal ended the man’s political aspirations. Less than six months later, on September 3, German’s lifeless body was discovered outside his home with multiple stab wounds. His dedicated newsroom colleagues, including Kane, vowed to find the killer. In doing so, they exposed the true depths of corruption and malice in Sin City. Meanwhile, the police struggled to identify a suspect until they released a photo of the suspect's vehicle to the media. That tip led them to none other than the small-time politician, who was subsequently arrested and now faces life in prison, pending the outcome of his trial in August 2024. In THE LAST STORY, Kane delivers an intense narrative of courage, betrayal, and the unrelenting quest for justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A West German nightclub owner goes behind the Iron Curtain on a desperate mission to save his brother, in this Cold War thriller by the author of Lost Kin. West Germany, 1949. Former actor Max Kaspar suffered greatly in the Second World War. Now he owns a nightclub in Munich—and occasionally lends a hand to the newly formed CIA. Meanwhile, his brother Harry has ventured beyond the Iron Curtain to rescue an American scientist. When Harry is also taken captive, Max resolves to locate his brother at all costs. The last thing he expects is for Harry to go rogue. Max’s treacherous quest takes him to Vienna and Prague to Soviet East Germany and Communist Poland. Along the way, dangerous operators from Harry’s past join the pursuit: his former lover Katarina, who’s working for the Israelis, and former Nazi Hartmut Dietz, now an agent of East German intelligence. But can anyone be trusted? Even the American scientist Stanley Samaras may not be the hero Harry had believed him to be . . . Amazon.com: Lines of Deception (The Kaspar Brothers) eBook : Anderson, Steve: Books Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When low-level legbreaker Kincaid takes on a new assignment, he discovers it’s not really a step up — it’s a setup. The deal was supposed to be this: Protect Abby Doyle, the daughter of Birmingham, Alabama’s most dangerous crime lord. But when Abby’s fiancé is found murdered, Kincaid is forced to team up with BPD detective Laura D’Agostino to find the killer and protect Abby at all costs … even from her own father. The killer’s trail winds through Birmingham — the city streets, the back alleys, the world-class food scene and the hole-in-the-wall clubs and bars — and the white-flight suburbs that surround the city, as Kincaid and D’Agostino uncover secrets that everyone would prefer left alone. But Kincaid doesn’t care about secrets. He’s been hired to do a job, and he’ll see it through or die trying. Thrown together by circumstance, Kincaid and D’Agostino explore their unexpected feelings for one another while chasing down the killer and untangling a land swindle in North Birmingham that’s been in the making for more than a decade. But their relationship may not survive the explosive ending that sees Kincaid stand alone against the toughest crime lord the city has ever known. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.