Showing results by narrator "Laura Hicks" in All Categories

Bobby Foster, car-hop at the chic Cafe Comedie, is going to the gas chamber. He's already confessed to the murder of Tracy Kostakos, the club's rising star. But two years after the crime, Tracy's body is still missing and Bobby's confession is full of holes. All Souls Legal Cooperative's final appeal sends San Francisco's number-one P.I., Sharon McCone, behind the footlights into the super-charged arena of anxious club owners and aspiring young hopefuls...into the fractured world of Tracy's priviledged family and the mind of a young comedienne who was not the good little girl they thought they knew....

It's a cold Sunday in San Francisco. Sharon McCone's alone on a routine surveillance job, following a man named Frank Wilkonson through the city's lush horticultural hot spots to the sere foothills of the Diablos. But when she returns to find her kindly old client in a pool of blood, nothing she's learned explains it. The search for answers takes her from Wilkonson's sullen brood on Burning Oak Ranch, to the eccentric havoc of a household in the Haight, to Golden Gate Park and the desperate digs of the homeless.

Along with their husbands, Amanda, Karen, and Georgia are a close-knit circle of friends enjoying seemingly ideal lives in an upscale neighborhood. But when they learn that their lovely younger neighbor, widowed for a year and presumably still unattached, is pregnant, the strains and imperfections of their lives come into full focus. As they ponder who the father might be, each of the women harbors suspicions about her own husband - and each is forced to a crisis point that will strengthen or shatter her marriage.

Appleby Island, once the magnificent home of a tycoon and planter, is a place of history and mystery in the Sacramento delta. Its story includes hints of tragedy, fueling rumors that ghosts still walk its derelict orchards. Now Patsy McCone, her new lover, and a group of invetors are turning the old mansion into an elegant bed and breakfast.

Forty-year-old nurse Terry Painter enjoys a solitary existence. Her tranquil life takes a turn, however, when young, vibrant Alison Simms rents the cottage behind her, bringing friendship and excitement. But after the initial euphoric wave, Terry soon finds that the friendship that once brightened her days now has her fearing for her life! Can she reclaim her life before Alison's past catches up to them?

Cattle Kate is the only woman ever lynched as a cattle rustler. History called it "range-land justice" when she was strung up in Wyoming Territory on July 20, 1889, tarring her as a dirty thief and a filthy whore. But history was wrong. It was all a lie. Her real name was Ella Watson. She wasn't a rustler. She wasn't a whore. And she'd never been called Cattle Kate until she was dead and they needed an excuse.

Amanda Travis is a high-powered, 28-year-old lawyer whose greatest likes are spinning classes at her Palm Beach gym and a compliant jury. As for the things she hates, they include nicknames, the color pink, clients who don't follow her advice, and memories. Unfortunately, running from her past becomes a lot harder when one of her ex-husbands calls from her hometown of Toronto with the alarming news that her mother has shot and killed a complete stranger.

Picture Salmon Bay: an isolated, run-down northern California village, home to an idle fleet of fishing boats, a deserted amusement park, and a handful of secretive, even hostile residents. When private investigator Sharon McCone arrives in search of one of the town's wayward daughters, the trail leads to the thriving resort of Port San Marco. McCone believes that the missing woman, a former social worker named Jane Anthony, was involved in the suspicious deaths of three terminally ill patients at an exclusive hospice.

Settled in to their new home after they lost their house in a fire, and fully established in their new shared offices, private investigator Sharon McCone and her business partner husband, Hy, are finally starting to feel comfortable. That calm is shattered when Hy's former colleague, Gage Renshaw - a shady troublemaker whom they presumed dead - reappears, and it's unclear what he wants from his prosperous former associate.

Three years ago, Caro Warrick was acquitted for the murder of her best friend, Amelia Bettecourt, but the lingering doubts of everyone around Caro is adversely affecting her life. Sharon McCone is confident that she can succeed where other detectives have failed (though at times it's hard to shake her own misgivings about what happened), but when Caro is brutally beaten right at Sharon's doorstep, the investigation takes on a whole new course. How many more people remain at risk until Amelia's murderer is finally caught? This audio includes a bonus McCone story, "Skeleton in the Closet"!

When new clients Jay and Camilla Givens come to Sharon McCone with Camilla's stories of devil worshippers performing human sacrifices in San Francisco, the detective is skeptical, to say the least. However, when she discovers that Jay is involved with the treasure hunting group the Night Searchers, she starts looking into what exactly he and the other participants are up to after dark. As she digs deeper into the Searchers, Sharon joins their ranks in order to find out more - while someone is searching for her.

A fearless and spirited pilot conquers Hollywood. Now can she survive movie stardom? In 1945 Velva Jean Hart is a bona fide war heroine. After a newsreel film of her triumphant return to America, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promises to make her a star. They give her a new life story and a brand-new name. As "Kit Rogers", she navigates the movie sets, recording sessions, parties, staged romances, and occasional backstabbing that accompany her newfound fame.

To tourists, bay-windowed Victorian mansions are quaint, peaceful symbols of old San Francisco, but on the secluded hill above Steiner Street, the gingerbread has sparked a bitter battle. Ambitious developers are pushing for restoration and residents are fighting for their homes… until a controversial restorationist is found dead on the job, awash in garish housepaint. Private investigator Sharon McCone is called in only to discover a second bitter feud, this time between the developers and members of the city's powerful architectural community.

In "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a woman's world is upended when she learns the brutal truth about a family friend's death--and what her father is capable of. Meanwhile, a businessman desperate to find his missing two-year-old grandson in "Suicide Watch" must determine whether the horrifying tale his junkie son tells him about the boy's whereabouts is a confession or a sick test. In "Valentine, July Heat Wave" a man prepares a gruesome surprise for the wife determined to leave him.

Private eye Sharon McCone receives an email asking for help from her emotionally disturbed half-brother, Darcy Blackhawk, but he fails to reply to her response. As Sharon digs deeper, she discovers that Darcy sent his message from an Internet café in San Francisco, a city he's never been to before. Sensing that Darcy is in terrible danger, McCone begins a search for him throughout the city. The investigation leads her to the body of a woman at the Palace of Fine Arts, where a witness told her Darcy was headed. As her search widens, Sharon uncovers a connection to an unsolved murder....

Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation, Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California's high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to investigate anything during her stay - and perhaps not ever again - McCone is drawn into the plight of the young woman and her dysfunctional family.

The Globe Apartments, six stories of decaying brick and concrete, rises above San Francisco's volatile Tenderloin district. The seedy former hotel, once a haven for the city's down and out, now houses Vietnamese families striving to improve their lives. But private eye Sharon McCone believes that someone from the Tenderloin's shadowy underworld is determined to drive the newcomers out.

Sharon McCone is excited - and relieved - to move her detective agency into the perfect new office space. Unfortunately, real estate woes aren't the only headache that the new building brings into Sharon's life. Possible 19th-century ghosts and a shady "intra-reality organization" ensure that Sharon's new office will bring as much excitement as any of her clients.

Meet Faye Quick, a sassy secretary who keeps the home fires burning by reluctantly becoming a private investigator after her boss and agency owner, Woody Mason, joins the army. True to her name, Faye catches on quickly and is especially adept at solving crimes - notably when she stumbles (quite literally) over the body of a murdered woman. This accidental discovery not only forces Faye to keep the doors of the agency open during wartime, it keeps them swinging.

Awash in tears, salesgirl Claire Turner arrives at the Times Square office of Private Investigator Faye Quick and begs Faye to find her missing boyfriend, Army Private Charlie Ladd, who has been AWOL for three days. Faye takes the case, which leads her to Charlie's room at the Hotel Commodore - where she finds an unknown man naked, dead, and stuffed inside a wardrobe.