Mystery Biography

Coral Castle is the first audiobook to take an objective, journalistic look at one of America's most intriguing places: Coral Castle, located in Homestead, Florida. Edward Leedskalnin, an eccentric Latvian immigrant, built Coral Castle in the 1920s and 30s. Working alone with primitive tools, he quarried, carved, and set in place more than 1,100 tons of coral rock, creating what is commonly known as the American Stonehenge. How he accomplished this amazing feat remains a mystery.

Filius Thoreau, arch-benefit fraudster and jaunty raconteur, celebrates the silver anniversary of his induction into the world of the workshy with his candid, but not too candid, autobiography in which he celebrates the unique and sinuous path he has steered through the minefield of work-obsessed modern Britain. From the dark days of the Poll Tax through the laissez-faire nineties to the ghastly government work schemes of the new millennium, Filius has marched onwards to the sound of his own personal drummer and constructed a uniquely apologist philosophy along the way.

In Five Days Gone, Laura Cumming brilliantly unspools the tale of her mother’s life and unravels the multiple mysteries at its core. Using photographs from the time, historical documents, and works of art, Cumming investigates this case of stolen identity with the tool set of a detective and the unique intimacy of a daughter trying to understand her family’s past and its legacies. Compulsive, vivid, and profoundly touching, Five Days Gone is a masterful blend of memoir and history, an extraordinary personal narrative unlike any other.

Almost since the beginning of time, man has committed crimes that have defied our ability to explain. Among these are the most heinous crimes of all, murders. The taking of an innocent life goes against our most basic principles. Yet, murders continue to occur, and sometimes, they go unsolved. Following are some of the most famous and infamous cases that are still waiting. They are murders, unsolved, in audiobook form.

In the early of investigating the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, L.A.P.D. Homicide Detective Mark Fuhrman uncovered evidence destined to become the cornerstone of the prosecution's case in the trial of O.J. Simpson. But as the elaborate legal epic unfolded, Fuhrman himself-his character and professional conduct - far overshadowed the impact of his evidence.

What makes people want to solve a mystery? Listen to these seven stories and you might decide there are some things that can never be explained. Find out how one woman checked into a Parisian hotel - and then disappeared; why Flight 19 never returned, with no sign of wreckage or survivors; and if the ghosts of Borley rectory can ever rest in peace. With gripping accounts and dramatic fact files, uncover some mysterious events from real life and decide what you think really happened.

As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices.

Notorious assassin Rafael Rontego is kidnapped from his hotel room moments before FBI Agent Sydney Price and her team close in on the man she believes can provide enough evidence to bring down the Ciancetta crime family. As she chases down the prize of her investigation, she enlists help from former Buffalo undercover cop Alex Vaughn. The ensuing blood bath leads them on a trail that exposes corruption, terrorists, and the realization of their deepest fears.

The Exceptional Crimes Unit stopped another criminal: Lucy Speckle. The brilliant FBI agent, Christian Windsor, pushed her to suicide....watching as she cut her own throat. It changed Christian, though, and those around him are starting to notice. He's darker. Harsher. Crueler. His partner, Luke Titan, couldn't be happier because he engineered the whole thing. If anyone knew Titan's true intentions, they'd call him a psychopath. They'd lock him up. They'd put him in the electric chair. Too bad his genius keeps him hidden in the shadows.

When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at a local bathhouse in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. As Twain steamed, played cards, and drank beer with Sawyer (a volunteer firefighter, customs inspector, and local hero responsible for having saved 90 lives at sea), he had second thoughts about Shirley Tempest, his proposed book about a local girl firefighter, and began to envision a novel of wider scope.

Jack the Ripper still causes a shudder, synonymous as it is with violent murder and mutilation. But also of mystery and speculation, for the gruesome series of killings in London's East End in that horrific autumn of 1888 have never been finally solved. The identity of the Ripper, his motives, and his association have been the subject of endless discussion and speculation since Victorian times. Suspects have been as varied as a Jewish slaughter man and the Duke of Clarence.

During the mid-1960s, the people of America became accustomed to opening their newspapers to two types of headlines. The first would be positive and often have something to do with the space program, perhaps which mission was in the works or which one had just been completed. Then there would be an article of a more negative nature, often concerning the United States' increasing involvement in the Vietnam War. Toward the end of 1968, however, a new and more sinister headline began to pop up.

Renowned author John Allen, who has personally navigated the depths of grief and loss, invites listeners on a profound journey through the ethereal landscapes of 'Heavenly Realms.' In this enlightening exploration, Allen delves into the mysteries surrounding heaven and offers a glimpse into the unknown, providing a beacon of light for those grappling with the complexities of grief.

On a cold night in December 1956, two young girls mysteriously vanished after a night at the movies on the Southwest Side of Chicago, beginning one of the greatest searches to ever take place in the history of the city. Three weeks later, the bodies of the two lost girls, Barbara and Patricia Grimes, were found on the side of a secluded, snow-covered road, miles from where they disappeared. The discovery of their battered corpses created one of the greatest unsolved mysteries to ever baffle post-war America. Where had the girls been for the past three weeks?

In January 1923, 20-year-old Fritzie Mann left home for a remote cottage by the sea to meet a man whose identity she had revealed to no one. The next morning, the barely clad body of the beautiful and bewitching dancer washed up on lonely Torrey Pines beach, her party dress and possessions strewn about on the sand.

Who was Alice Marble? In her public life, she was the biggest tennis star of the pre-war era, a household name like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. She was famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, including Wimbledon. She was also a fashion designer and trendsetter, a contributor to a pioneering new comic called Wonder Woman - and friend to the biggest names in Hollywood and society, like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, and members of families named Bloomingdale, Loew, and du Pont.

CAVEMAN: A QUEST FOR FREEDOM IN SPAIN is a humorous, thought-provoking new novel by the author of SPANISH JOURNALS: THE POSTHUMOUS DIARY OF AN EXPAT. Tom Worsley, retired postman of forty-three, is fed up of life in his Lancashire town and decides to head off to live in a cave in southern Spain. There he plans to get back to basics and lead a life of simplicity, cultivate his mind, and improve his Spanish. None of his new friends in the nearby village can dissuade him from pursuing his singular goal, but after his cave is discovered by outsiders, his life becomes a good deal more complicated.

Young, petite, boyish and full of charm, Alice was the only woman in Australia to successfully pull off an almost impossible feat: without family or husband to back her financially, she built a garage to her own specifications and established the country's only motor service run entirely by women.

A tour de force of storytelling years in the making: a dual biography of two of the greatest songwriters, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, that is also a murder mystery and a history of labor relations and socialism, big business and greed in 20th-century America - woven together in one epic saga that holds meaning for all working Americans today.

On October 26, 1961, after an evening of studying with friends on the campus of Transylvania University, 19-year-old student Betty Gail Brown got into her car around midnight - presumably headed for home. But she would never arrive. Three hours later, Brown was found dead in a driveway near the center of campus, strangled to death with her own brassiere. Kentuckians from across the state became engrossed in the proceedings as lead after lead went nowhere. Four years later, the police investigation completely stalled.