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Title: The Brink of Murder

Author: Helen Nielsen

Narrator: Christian Rummel

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Barney Amling, president of Pacific Guaranty, disappears. So do a million of the companys dollars. Ostensibly, he has gone to Mexico City for a monetary conference, but he didnt arrive and wasnt expected. His wife calls in the lawyer Simon Drake (Helen Nielsens usual and always brilliant detective). Neither she nor Simon, who knows Barney well, can believe that hes a thief; nor can Captain Reardon, chief of police, who is another old friend. But things dont look good.

Simon probes into Barneys dubious relationship with Pucci, property speculator and near-gangster, and with Verna, ex-brothel madame and nightclub owner. The trail leads to Buenos Aires, where Barney is seemingly killed in a spectacular car crash. But is he dead? The plot grows increasingly complex, the action quickens, the tension mounts

Helen Nielsen writes as compellingly as ever; her ingenuity is matched by her readability. Her many fans have another treat in store this time.

Members Reviews:

Simon Drake And The Disappearing Banker

âThe Brink of Murderâ was first published in 1976 and it appears to have been Helen Nielsenâs final novel of the nineteen she published. It is the fourth novel in her âSimon Drakeâ series, following âAfter Midnight,â âDarkest Hour,â and âThe Severed Key.â

The Drake series is an excellent mystery series and truly has not been given the attention and accolades that it deserves. Drake, to be sure, is not your typical hardboiled protagonist. He is not a private investigator, does not have trouble paying his bills, is not beat up by every hood he encounters, and does not have dalliances with every buxom blonde bimbo he encounters. Drake is a well-to-do lawyer who lives in a mansion at the beach, drives a speedy Jaguar, and is married to a bombshell of a singer. Nevertheless, there is never a dull moment in this series and Nielsen is such a great writer that it is quite enjoyable to read.

âThe Brink of Murderâ is a flawless mystery that Drake finds himself involved in that begins with a missing banking executive and all-American football hero and takes Drake on a whirlwind of activity from marinas filled with yachts, to swank restaurants, to luncheons with mobsters, and to South American nightclubs, and features plenty of action and plenty of sizzle.

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Title: The Silent Wall

Author: Peter Rabe

Narrator: Mark Ashby

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Matty Matthews has been to the town of Forza dAguil before. Stationed there with a small group of soldiers during WWII, it was here that Matty fell in love with Rosanna. It was a sweet, short-lived affair until the soldiers unexpectedly got orders to pull out. Matty never got to say goodbye. Now hes back in Sicily, drawn to the mountain town after all these years. But the citizens of Forza dAguil are easy to offend, and when Matty inadvertently crosses Pino, the Mafioso sabotages his leaving.

Trapped in Forza dAguil, hemmed in on all sides by the oppression of the town and its silent citizens, hes stuck in the middle of Mafia country with no way out. He has only the help of the innkeeper Vinciguerra, a man he cant understand, and the passion of the sweet Sophia. Or is she part of the sinister web, too?

Members Reviews:

Noir Tale with an Unusual Setting

Another reviewer has noted the gratuitous violence and sex in this novel. Yes, it has it. Rabe was a crime fiction writer in the 50's and 60's, and this book is very much in the noir style of that period though it was written much later in his life (probably in the late 80's). So if that bothers you, this is a title to avoid ... and all other noir titles as well. On the other hand, If you like the Parker books of Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) or the masterpieces of James M. Cain, then you might want to give this one a whirl.

A radioman who worked in a remote location in Sicily during WWII returns years later to discover what became of the woman he loved. He falls into a mafia-fueled nightmare where a seemingly minor social faux pas makes him a prisoner of a remote village.

Rabe's writing is undeniably stylish and the setting for this noir piece is appetizingly unusual. However, I found his dialogue hard to read as it sometimes fails to cue the reader correctly with appropriate sequencing or grammatical tags. This, coupled with the amount of talk in the novel and the complex emotional and cultural stresses ultimately make the book somewhat confusing to read and rob it of some of its impact. I had to read the last dozen paragraphs five times to work out the final motivations of the characters.

still not my style

This was my second book by this author--thought I'd give him another try---but it was the same as the first. Hemingway-ish is not my style; there is a lot of gratuitous sex and violence that some might find appealing.

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Title: Blood on the Desert

Author: Peter Rabe

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Anthony Wheeler didnt want the job. When Major Pitt called him into the London office, Wheeler was trying to track down his old mentor, Fairchild. It had been Fairchild who had pulled him into the business. Not everyone is cut out to be a spy - Wheeler excelled at it. And Pitt would simply not accept his refusal. Now he is off to Kaden in North Africa, where three Arab chieftains who had been feuding for years are suddenly acting very friendly. Wheelers mission - find out why. The last person he expects to run into is Fairchild. It is good to see his old friend - so why did it feel so wrong?

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Title: Darkest Hour

Author: Helen Nielsen

Narrator: Christian Rummel

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

A super-cool lady - a passionate murder.

Simon Drake hadnt counted on violence when he asked the super-cool Hannah Lee to manage the Marina Beach mansion. With beautiful Hannah residing as den mother and poker companion, Simon soon found himself host to the most colorful characters on the California coast.

And, shortly, he discovered that his lovely home was a haven from everything but passionate murder.

Members Reviews:

Murder, Blackmail. kidnapping, & Conspiracies

This is the second of the four Simon Drake novels Helen Nielsen wrote in the late sixties and early seventies. Drake is a lawyer who struck it rich when an early client in a patent case paid him in stock that grew exponentially in value. He lives in a mansion with Hannah Lee, an older actress famous in the 20's and 30's, who sold it to him and didn't want to leave. He is engaged to Wanda Call, a client from "After Midnight" and a renowned actress in her own right. They live in the fictional town of Marina Beach, California. They drive a Rolls and a Jaguar and Drake only works when something interesting breaks.

Something interesting indeed broke in this novel. A matinee idol actor died when he fell from a hotel balcony. A newspaperman drives off a foggy road and dies. A woman tries to blackmail Drake, but she's not in any condition to talk to him when he finds her. Murder, blackmail, smuggling, being framed for murder.... And bombs going off.

It's a well-written mystery that flows quite nicely. It's a little slow and disjointed in the beginning, but packs a good punch as the story gets moving. There are plenty of bodies turning up in this one. There are shoot outs and hoods.

Drake is kind of upperclass for someone in a mystery and, in that sense, different from the more common down-on-their luck PI of hardboiled novels. He's not worrying about paying his rent, retreating to his mansion at night like Bruce Wayne. Nevertheless, Nielsen tells a good story, not as good as "After Midnight," but still worthy.

The other Simon Drake novels include "After Midnight," "The Severed Key," and "The Brink Of Murder." "A Killer In The Street" is often listed erroneously as the second book in the series, but it is not a Simon Drake book.

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Title: The Box

Author: Peter Rabe

Narrator: Kyle Munley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Quinn thought he had all the angles figured. After all, taking over the Organization should be a piece of cake for such a smart guy. But what he didnt figure was that boss Ryder would stuff him in a large crate with enough food and water to sustain him - and ship him around the world. When the freighter ports at the North African town of Okar, the captain of the boat decides it's time to unload the box. It's starting to make noises, and it smells bad. What emerges from this wooden coffin looks barely human. But once Quinn recovers, he starts to look around. Is this a new chance at life, or an opportunity to cash in on another racket, halfway around the world?

Members Reviews:

Leave it in the box

The premise was promising. A man sent around the world in a box as punishment for messing with the wrong people. Unfortunately, once he's out of the box, not much happens, and the main character doesn't have much character. Struggled to finish, thinking there had to be a moral - couldn't find one.

A Special Kind of Prison

At one point in time, one of the more clever punishments that the Mafia meted out to those who disobeyed orders (at least according to Peter Rabe) was to knock the offender out, place him in a coffin-sized crate with jars of food and water, and ship him off on a cargo ship on a round trip tour of the world. If the offender survived, he would be humbled and beaten. And, no longer a threat.

This is a story of one poor soul set adrift on such a journey and how he survives when he is prematurely rescued from the darkness and filth in his living coffin.

The box serves as a metaphor for the gangster life as well as a physical prison and the psychological question is whether he really survived the box, whether he can escape its constraints, is he the same person now.

This is certainly a pulp tale about organized crime, but it has a very different feel and format than most pulp crime novels. It's a solid tale about a man coming back to life in a strange new world, but it may not appeal to everyone.

A strange, unique hardboiled gem

By the time he reached the North African port of Okar, the captain has had enough of the strange noises and foul odor coming from the phone-booth-sized box in his cargo hold. After badgering the port's clerk Whitfield to allow this strange box to be unloaded, they find the ravening Quinn held inside, ex-lawyer to the Mob, stuffed in the cargo crate on a round-trip ticket from New York across the Mediterranean and back to New York again. After his recuperation, Quinn finds himself born anew on the sands of the desolate Okar. What does with this new-found freedom, his new clean slate?

Resort to his old ways, of course; Quinn dives into Okar's seedy underbelly rife with smuggling and slave-trading with the goal of claiming this tiny criminal empire for himself. The local mayor and crime lord, Remal, has organized a small but profitable smuggling operation, connecting it with the Sicilian Mafia. And Quinn has decided to shake it up.

It's important to emphasize that Rabe had a doctorate in psychology, because that knowledge shines through in works like this one. The Box sees Rabe's prose in full-blown glory, a poetic style that weaves in and out of perspective and point-of-view, at one moment full of lush description, at another full of tense but vague dialogue, then winding into stream-of-consciousness rich in color metaphors.

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Title: Journey into Terror

Author: Peter Rabe

Narrator: Mark Ashby

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

There was a robbery that went bad and a girl was accidentally shot dead. Just an accident. But to John Bunting, it was the end of all his hopes. The girl was his fiance. What could he do? The cops werent looking. He had to find the killers himself. And thats when he ran into Linda. She had lost her husband, had stopped caring. But she knew the men responsible for the killing. She could get Bunting close to them while he figured out who fired the actual shot. They were two wounded souls, one filled with hate, the other trying to find a reason to live. Its funny how much they needed each other....

Members Reviews:

Murder, Crime Syndicates, & Odd Characters

In Journey Into Terror, Rabe gives us a crime novel that has murder, crime syndicates, gambling machines, brothels, and revenge. But it's different from most other crime novels because it isn't really about shootings and mobsters so much as it's a psychological study of two awkward people who don't really fit in and have been emotionally wounded to the point where they are walking zombies. The characters are odd and a bit off putting and the lead character is just so awkward that he can't even have a pleasant conversation with anyone.

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Title: The Hare in March

Author: Vin Packer

Narrator: Fleet Cooper

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

A murder begins and ends this story of scandal and tragedy in a college town. You'll meet some memorable characters here - most of them hair-raising - as novelist Vin Packer spins out a sinister excursion with the cool, campy kids of Far Point College, New York.

It's a wild, wild joyride - from Thunderbird to Bluebird, from classroom to Cheetah, with stops on the way at rent-by-the-hour motel rooms. Youll watch in horror as the Pucci-Plantagenet crowd burns up the roads, heading for that sickening, inevitable crash...that jolting confrontation with the reality they cant escape...with The Hare in March

Members Reviews:

Mad as a March Hare?

How did the girl on lover's lane end up dead in the Thunderbird, and who

is the spaced-out college boy beside her? Two New York policeman believe

it's a typical act of violence in these days of casual sex, LSD,and Vietnam.

They couldn't imagine the truth if they tried. Little Arnold Hagerman has

a very big problem, one these cops aren't familiar with, but then who is

whose still alive?

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Title: Lady of a Thousand Sorrows

Author: Lee W. Mason

Narrator: Christine Williams

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Viven Blanc Sarris must fight for her life. Her first husband, a famous politician slain in the Southwest; her second husband, one of the richest men in the world, dead in the south of France; her sister, a courtesan of royalty - none of them can protect her from inescapable danger now.

Out of her past has come that final and terrible secret that may kill her. And in those last desperate days she must find the answer to a conspiracy of madness and evil.

Members Reviews:

Barry Malzberg deconstructs the Kennedys

This is actually a novel by the superb SF writer Barry Malzberg, writing under one of his several pseudonyms. The style is pure Malzberg, and the subject one of his favorite obsessions: a thinly-veiled Kennedy saga, told this time by a Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis-like character being held against her will in a secluded room and awaiting assassination by her sinister caretakers. It's a quick, enjoyable read, and it sits well alongside other Malzberg stories for its bleakly funny portrayal of a paranoid mind, which happens to belong to one of the most prominent American icons.

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Title: The Smasher

Author: Talmage Powell

Narrator: David Doersch

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

A telephone rang - and Steve Griffin recognized the distant, terrified voice of his wife. ''Hes trying to run me down with a car. Hes trying to smash the life out of me, Steve.'' But who her pursuer was Maureen never lived to tell.What would drive an unknown man to kill Maureen, to smash out her life with an automobile which was the twin of Steves own? Steve Griffin could think of nothing that would explain this nightmare.

Then a special delivery letter came to his office. It had only a single, typewritten line: ''You owe me the kid too, Griffin.'' And now, desperately frightened for his young daughter, Steve knew he had to seek out the murderer himself. He realized he was seeking no ordinary hit-and-run driver, but a deadly menace who had sworn to kill again.

In this gripping first novel of suspense, Talmage Powell sharply evokes the tension of Griffins quest down to its last, savage seconds.

Members Reviews:

A Square Joe Searches for a Killer

The Smasher is a standalone crime thriller by Talmage Powell. In it, Powell adopts a somewhat different approach than in his Ed Rivers private eye books. This is the story of an ordinary square guy living in suburbia who comes face to face with a horrific circumstance. It feels as if the narrator (Steve Griffin) is in a bit of an Ozzie and Harriet type world and the plot slowly takes him through a search for his wife's killer. This story seems as if it were written to have wide appeal, not just an appeal to a pulp fiction audience. Here, it seems that Griffin and the police detective in charge of the case are uncomfortable with Maureen's friend, the playwright, a bohemian noncomformist. There is not a whole lot of action in this story and the tension is tight at some points. It is, by large, more wholesome than not. It is written well enough to make you want to read through it, but it is missing something.

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Title: Intimate Victims

Author: Vin Packer

Narrator: Steve Coulter

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 10-11-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Somehow hed ended up with someone elses coat...and that act could end Robert Bowsers life before it started.

His hand trembled as he answered the phone.

''Mr. Bowser?''

''Yes.''

''Mr. Bowser, my name is Harvey Plangman.''

''Yes, Mr. Plangman. I have your wallet, and jacket, too, I believe.''

''And I have yours.''

''Why dont you drive over here? I could offer you a drink and we could reclaim our things.''

''Mr. Bowser, were you planning on going to Brazil?''

Was this really how the world ended?

''You dont have anything to be afraid of, Mr. Bowser.''

''Id better come there.''

''Yes, I think it would be better if you came here. Youll know who I am all right, Mr. Bowser. Im wearing your coat."

Members Reviews:

Be sure the coat belong to you

Be sure the coat belongs to you. If you get someone else's coat, it could

be catastrophic, and in this case certainly the wrong time for such an

accident. The owner of the coat has just embezzled a lot of money. The finder of the coat dreams of the day he can afford Countess Mara ties, and all the

little luxuries that tell the world he's a man of impotance. They are a

strange pair, victims of each other, not intimate by choice but because

of an accident that could happen to you or me, they are doomed.