Showing results by narrator "Marguerite Gavin" in All Categories

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present.

Private investigator and former beauty queen Madeline Maclin thought she'd seen it all in her small North Carolina town of Celosia. Yet Evil Turns, fifth in the lively series by Jane Tesh, opens with a young man's body covered in strange occult symbols found in a local vineyard, putting Mac on notice that there is more than one witch in the neighborhood.

We follow the Socker family through many adventures, from encountering the slobbery mouth of the family dog to meeting Santa as he comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve to helping a fireman save a baby to the most shy Socker going to the school dance for the first time. Thanks to the time-travel opportunities afforded by the spin cycle of the washer, they learn about some of the most important humans in the world.

In this story, we learn about Sudsy landing on the foot of inventor Ben Franklin. Sudsy, the bug-playing boy sock, discovers with Ben Franklin the wonders and dangers of electricity. The book includes safety rules and discussion questions put together by an experienced classroom teacher in helping parents and children respect the power of electricity.

The average attention span of an adult is eight seconds - eight seconds! That is tough news for a presenter. It means you may have a room full of people, but their minds are elsewhere. You're competing with a slew of activities demanding their attention - email, texts, Facebook, YouTube, chats, and apps, in addition to thoughts about their next meetings and projects that are behind schedule. How do you get a message across in a world like that?

Traditionally, human resources has focused on recruiting good people, preparing them for assignments, motivating them to perform, and retaining them. These functions remain essential. But to be successful in turbulent times like ours, human capital strategy needs to be broader and much more far reaching.

The horrific slaughter of a prominent doctor, his wife, and their ten-year-old son inside their Scottsdale home brings US senatorial candidate Juliana Thorsson to private investigator Lena Jones. The slain family's 14-year-old, Alison, and her boyfriend, Kyle, have confessed to the murders. Thorsson wants to hire Lena to discover if Alison is telling the truth, but before accepting the job, Lena demands to know why a rising political star wants to involve herself with the fate of a girl she's never met.

Captain Josie Corsino has selected Kyle Richards, a trusted and talented sergeant, to supervise a burglary task force in Hollywood division. While working that special detail, Richards is involved in a fatal shooting. He's reluctant to be candid about his relationship with the man he killed, and that leads not only to uncovering his mysterious past but exposing Josie’s division to notoriety and a fiery assault.

Imagine a country where the right to vote is not guaranteed by the Constitution, where the candidate with the most votes loses, and where paperwork requirements and bureaucratic bungling disenfranchise millions. You're living in it. If the consequences weren't so serious, it would be funny. An eye-opening, fact-filled companion to the forthcoming PBS documentary starring political satirist and commentator Mo Rocca, Electoral Dysfunction illuminates a broad array of issues.

Hiram Granville, a modern Leonardo, secured more than a thousand patents during his lifetime, often just ahead of others who had already been working on the same ideas. His son, John, an economics genius, never lost a cent in the stock market—or any other financial deal—and was investigated for insider trading on more than one occasion. Now Cat, a documentarian; her researcher, Mercy; and Cracker Jack, an electronics whiz, are doing a film about the Granville clan. What they find as they research the family is madness, suicide, and a frightening glimpse about what it means to peer into the future.

Twelve years have passed since the events of A Handful of Stars. Star continues to silently mourn Caleb’s death, World Builders, Inc. is completing its first asteroid-based Bernal sphere, and the Svensdotter twins are of a restless age. When the opportunity to undertake a survey mission of Mars’ Cydonia region presents itself, Star leaps at the chance. Drifting above Mars' surface, the family rediscovers the wonder of pure exploration.

Things are never easy for Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones. Her partner in Desert Investigations, Jimmy Sisiwan, is leaving for a moneyed wife and a job at Southwest Microsystems, and her old captain at the Scottsdale Police Department is off to his home in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, she’s doing security for Warren Quinn, director of a documentary film about the American World War II camp for German POWs at Arizona’s Papago Park, from which some prisoners once escaped.

After solving her first big murder case in the small town of Celosia, North Carolina, Madeline Maclin hopes at last to be taken seriously as a private investigator. She has opened an office in the home of her best friend, Jerry Fairweather, a man haunted by his past who enjoys running harmless scams. Jerry doesn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love, which is bad news for Madeline.Secretly, Madeline has questions about the accident that killed Jerry’s parents and suspects that Jerry’s sister Harriet knows more.

When PI Lena Jones’ partner, Pima Indian Jimmy Sisiwan, is arrested in the remote town of Walapai Flats in northern Arizona, Lena closes the Desert Investigations office and rushes to his aid. What she finds is a town up in arms over a new uranium mine located only ten miles from the magnificent Grand Canyon.

This delightful and interesting account of the Pilgrims is written especially for children. It explores the religious oppression of the Pilgrims in England, their escape to Holland and eventual crossing to America on the Mayflower, and their early days in New England. Based on historical fact, the stories are filled with details of everyday life and vivid characterizations of Pilgrim families as they struggle to maintain their faith in the New World.

Cheap. It's a dirty word laden with negative meanings. It is also the story of Lauren Weber's life. As a child, she resented her father for keeping the heat at 50 degrees through the frigid winters and rarely using his car's turn signals - to keep them from burning out. But as an adult, she found herself walking 30 blocks to save $2 on subway fare. In Cheap We Trust teases out the meanings of cheapness and examines the wisdom and pleasures of not spending every last penny.

The Second Declaration opens with a fascinating "Chinese Dream", and turns it into the common dream of all mankind. Absolutely original, with vivid style, verve, imagination and sharp view points, The Second Declaration is a fascinating vision of future economies, the development trends of future cultures, and the development trends of future mankind.

This is the story of three very different men in love with the same woman. It is also the story of that woman, Francine Widmer.

Unlike many celebrities, Winfrey's is an overwhelmingly positive public persona. Here, religion reporter Marcia Nelson explores the spiritual dimensions that are prevalent in all aspects of the Oprah Winfrey media empire. Though Oprah is rarely explicitly religious on her television show or magazine, Nelson points out that there are several major Christian themes that weave through these aspects of her life and work: confession, redemption, healing, mission, forgiveness, and salvation.

Today, many Americans regard globalization as a significant threat to our work force, and to our very way of life. As unemployment soars, the automotive and manufacturing industries crumble, countless jobs continue to ship overseas, and the retail sector faces the worst slump in decades, cries of "Buy American" have grown louder and louder.