Books published by publisher Books On Tape

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.

In his bravura account of Warhol's life and work, scholar and culture critic Wayne Koestenbaum gets past the contradictions and reveals the man behind the blond wig and dark glasses. Nimbly weaving brilliant and witty analysis into an absorbing narrative, Koestenbaum makes a convincing case for Warhol as a serious artist, one whose importance goes beyond the '60s. Focusing on Warhol's provocative, powerful films (many of which have been out of circulation since their initial release), Koestenbaum shows that Warhol's oeuvre, in its variety of forms (films, silkscreens, books, "happenings", and so on), maintains a striking consistency of theme: Warhol discovered in classic American images (Brillo boxes, Campbell soup cans, Marilyn's face) a secret history, the eroticism of time and space.

Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T.C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, Boyle speaks of contemporary social issues in a range of emotional keys. The 16 stories gathered here address everything from air rage to abortion doctors to first love and its consequences. The collection ends with the brilliant title story, a whimsical and imaginative vision of a disease-ravaged Earth. Presented with characteristic wit and intelligence, these stories will delight readers in search of the latest news of the chaotic, disturbing, and achingly beautiful world in which we live.

From the author of such travel adventure classics as Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and Road Fever, comes an informative and entertaining travelogue through one of America's favorite destinations: Yellowstone National Park. On his several-hundred-mile trek across the wilderness, the author explores such natural wonders as glaciers and geysers, muses about the microbiology of thermal pools, and witnesses moonbows arcing across waterfalls at midnight. Inevitably, he runs into Yellowstone's various inhabitants, including a grizzly bear with a footprint "about the size of a pizza", and others he had previously seen only on television.

To celebrate an April Fool's Day appearance by the island's most famous mystery author, Death on Demand bookstore owner Annie Darling creates a unique promotion. Offering a free book to anyone who can solve a series of clues about popular whodunits, Annie and husband Max pass out their flyers all over town. But an April Fool prankster is distributing a counterfeit flyer, complete with not-so-vague accusations of murder. Now, Annie is out to find the culprit, a search complicated by a troubled friend and by her own unpredictable mother-in-law, whose latest kick is finding lost pirate booty. But it's no laughing matter when murder is added to the mix, for now Annie and her handsome husband, Max, must unmask a killer before he strikes again.

A mesmerizing novel of four generations of Southwestern women bound to a mythical legacy With its family secrets and hallowed texts containing explosive truths, The Night Journal suggests A. S. Byatt’s Possession transplanted to the raw and beautiful landscape of the American Southwest. Meg Mabry has spent her life oppressed by her family’s legacy—a heritage beginning with the journals written by her great-grandmother in the 1890s and solidified by her grandmother Bassie, a famous historian who published them to great acclaim. Until now, Meg has stubbornly refused to read the journals. But when she concedes to accompany the elderly and vipertongued Bassie on a return trip to the fabled land of her childhood in New Mexico, Meg finally succumbs to the allure of her great-grandmother’s story—and soon everything she believed about her family is turned upside down.

A number-one best-seller from one of Britain's most popular novelists, Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act.Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: on her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow. Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political career. Jocasta is a tabloid newspaper reporter with an infallible instinct for the big story. The infant abandoned at Heathrow has grown up under the loving care of her adoptive family. Now a beautiful teenager named Kate, she sets out to find her birth mother: a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.

In 11th-century Japan, Sugawara Akitada is an impoverished nobleman and earnest young government clerk in the Ministry of Justice. On his first official assignment, he is sent from the capital city on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. However, the ever-resourceful Akitada, his elderly servant, Seimei, and his impudent bodyguard, Tora, are determined to fulfill their mission and discover the truth in a town of dangerous secrets. In an adventure filled with highway bandits, unscrupulous politicians, and renegade monks, The Dragon Scroll introduces readers to the captivating world of ancient Japan and an irrepressible new hero.

Since his first collection of stories, Descent of Man, appeared in 1979, T.C. Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. Among the fourteen tales in his seventh collection are the comic yet lyrical title story, in which a young man wins a vicious African cat in a bar bet; "Dogology," about a suburban woman losing her identity to a pack of strays; and "The Kind Assassin," which explores the consequences of a radio shock jock's quest to set a world record for sleeplessness. Muscular, provocative, and blurring the boundaries between humans and nature, the funny and the shocking, Tooth and Claw is Boyle at his best.

In I. J. Parker's latest mystery set in ancient Japan, a cold and hostile land pits Akitada against his deadliest foe yet. I. J. Parker's engrossing historical novels bring 11th-century Japan to life in all its colorful, treacherous glory. As Black Arrow opens, Sugawara Akitada assumes his new post as provisional governor of Echigo, a frigid province in the far north, notorious for its hostility to outsiders. But the snow that threatens to completely isolate the region is the least of his problems - which include a local uprising, a series of brutal murders, and a mystery that's as old as the frozen hills and a lot more dangerous. I. J. Parker's engrossing historical novels bring 11th-century Japan to life in all its colorful, treacherous glory. Superbly written and rich in period detail Black Arrow is another bravura performance from a master of the historical thriller.

An orphaned raccoon named Frosty and a strong-willed salmon called Indomitable are the stars of these 2 stories about amazing animals who survive despite scary circumstances. In Frosty, Harriet Weaver, the only female ranger in California's Big Basin Redwood Park, finds orphan Frosty and adopts the baby raccoon. She soon finds that Frosty is not only intelligent - he's mischievous, too. But his antics bring new joy to Harriet's life, which makes it all worthwhile. Indomitable is the story of a salmon who is a member of Prairie Creek Hatchery's Class of '64. One day, the whole class disappears. Where they went remains a mystery, until a morning of utter amazement 2 months later.

Jessica Darling's in college! Things are looking up for Jessica Darling. She has finally left her New Jersey hometown/hellhole for Columbia University in New York City; she's more into her boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, than ever (so what if he's at a Buddhist college in California?); and she's making new friends who just might qualify as stand-ins for her beloved best friend, Hope. But Jessica soon realizes that her bliss might not last. She lands an internship at a snarky Brooklyn-based magazine, but will she fit in with the uberhip staff (and will she even want to)? As she and Marcus hit the rocks, will she end up falling for her GOPunk, neoconservative RA, or the hot (and married!) Spanish grad student she's assisting on a summer project, or the oh-so-sensitive emo boy down the hall? Will she even make it through college now that her parents have cut her off financially? And what do the cryptic one-word postcards from Marcus really mean? With hilarious insight, the hyperobservant Jessica Darling struggles through her college years, and the summers in between, while maintaining her usual mix of wit, cynicism, and candor.