Mike

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to digest.

In the very near future, China, now the world’s largest industrial producer and consumer of Mideast Oil, passes a law that all new cars manufactured in that nation will be operated on natural gas. Beneath the floor of the South China Sea, around the contested Spratly Islands, billions of gallons of natural gas wait to be mined. But at the center of the Spratlys, the remote but strategic island of Itu Aba is occupied by China’s historic enemy, Taiwan.

A construction project beneath the National Mall reveals a dark secret dating back to the Civil War, something buried by a cabal of scientists, led by Alexander Graham Bell, who helped found the Smithsonian Institution. It is a cache of bones, preserved in amber, protecting a wonder like no other, the very secret of life after death. But such a prize is guarded by a horror out of the ancient past, a horror that still lives in the marrow of those bones - and is now free again.

My name is Kazimir Wolfe. People call me "Kaz", except they don’t. I never use my real name; it’s too dangerous, for me and for anyone I meet. I’m on the run from the law, who think I killed my aunt, and from whoever did kill her, because they want to finish the job. So, I move around a lot, working construction or whatever job I can find. It’s a lonely life. I don’t let anyone get close...people who get close to me end up dead. Why? I’m a wizard. The world’s only wizard, as far as I know.

An audiobook that is lighthearted, informational, and entertaining while making sure you don't bark up the wrong tree, this is the ultimate guide to have on your new journey with your furry friend.

The first agent disappearance was a puzzle. The second was a mystery. The third was a conspiracy. Intelligence operatives around the world are disappearing. When a missing American agent re-appears in Venezuela, Court Gentry, the Gray Man, is dispatched to bring him in, but a team of assassins has other ideas. Court escapes with his life and a vital piece of intelligence. Meanwhile, CIA agent Zoya Zakharova is in Berlin. Her mission: to infiltrate a private intelligence firm with some alarming connections. The closer she gets to answers, the less likely she is to get out alive.

From a secretive jungle-covered island in the Pacific, to the sands of the Middle East. From the smog-filled alleyways of China, to the passageways of a US Navy destroyer. The War Planners series follows different members of the military and intelligence community as they uncover the beginnings of a Chinese invasion.

While on vacation sailing the waters of the Puget Sound, geophysicist Alex Cave hears a mayday call on the radio and sees a brilliant flash of neon-blue light surround an oil tanker. He changes course to help and discovers there was no explosion, no one on board, and the oil has mysteriously vanished without a trace.

A hundred and forty years after a British ship wrecks on the way to an Australian penal colony and the survivors discover diamonds on the tropical island where they wash up, Maeve Fletcher, one of their descendants, is stranded on an island in Antarctica with a party of passengers after their cruise ship seemingly abandons them. Dirk Pitt, on an expedition to find the source of a deadly plague that is killing dolphins and seals in the Weddell Sea, finds Maeve and the passengers and rescues them from death.

On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation....