Showing results by narrator "Duffy P. 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.

Benedict Shade, were-cat and collector of exotic magical artifacts, is tasked by the Lord’s Investigation Agency to “collect” (i.e., “steal”) two pieces of fossilized dung from a river spirit in a backwoods town. What seems to be a routine job (for him) turns out to be anything but. Everyone in town believes Shade is an undercover agent for the LIA, a charge his hepcat buddy, Dwayne, is quick to remind him is true. A mysterious femme fatale can’t decide whether to seduce Shade or let him be killed by a horde of human mudfish.

Benedict Shade, a were-cat and collector of exotic and potentially lethal magical artifacts, arrives in Yerba City with his good buddy, Dwayne, to “collect” (some would say “steal”) an unusual dagger that is much more than it seems. Little does Shade realize that the dagger was involved in an assassination attempt with dire consequences.

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.

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 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.

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.

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!

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!

Early morning. A wooded clearing. The body surrounded by a conga line of head-bobbing wild turkeys. Then, Detective Rock Cobbler’s Thursday really starts to get weird.

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.

Daavi and family have again gotten pulled into one of Verity Corp's messes, and are going to have to help sort it out. It would be a lot easier if anybody knew what was going on. The only thing for certain is Milo Baumann was found drugged and passed out face first on Millie's floor, Manuela's being chased by thugs who want something from her, and if anybody knows what that is, it's certainly not her.

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.