“[I] instantly fell in love with these characters…Unlike other high-testosterone action-adventure series, the authors dedicated time and effort to tell a realistic story about Vietnam veterans.” —Paperback Warrior on Deady Reunion
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- Blue Water Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 5/21/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
Less than one hundred miles off the coast of Florida sits a tiny Caribbean island so innocuous that no one with grand nefarious plans would spare it a second glance. Or would they?
Key Isabella might be small, but it has become a hub for the drug trade into the United States. For the Black Berets—the world’s fiercest mercenaries—the issue of a billion-dollar heroin smuggling operation hits a sore spot they can’t ignore. Arriving in the West Indies, the five-man team of American heroes is tasked with overthrowing Key Isabella’s evil dictator without anyone finding out they’re involved. To make matters more difficult, they soon bump into the additional problem of a police force just as violent and corrupt as the nation’s tyrannical leader.
- Blue Water Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 5/21/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Akbar Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 4/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
The Black Berets are the world’s best hope …
India is a country divided, torn by religious strife and hounded by potential invaders on all sides. The world’s most powerful governments believe that whoever controls India holds the strategic advantage for global domination. As the chaos spins out of control, a name resurfaces after centuries of obscurity: Akbar.
Once a religious zealot who created his own dominant religion in the region, Akbar has returned, if not in body, then at least in spirit. Beeker, the leader of the fearsome Black Berets, wants nothing to do with a tangle of religious fanatics—until he learns they’ve stolen two atomic bombs they intend to use in their new holy war. Suddenly the mission’s far-reaching, devastating implications become impossible to ignore.
- The Akbar Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 4/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Samurai Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 3/12/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
Against a deadly alliance of Japanese smarts and KGB savagery, they were striking back—with everything they had!
In the arms race against Russia, the United States has eked ahead with their superior advancements in computer technology. All that changes when Russia recruits some of Japan’s finest scientific minds to build their greatest weapon yet: a supercomputer capable of annihilating the US’s formidable Star Wars defense system.
Destined for the land of the Samurai, the Black Berets know just how much is riding on this latest mission. If Russia succeeds in its quest for world domination, the future of the warriors’ countrymen—and their loved ones—is bleak indeed.
- The Samurai Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 3/12/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Night of the Jaguar
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 2/20/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
National hero, military genius—too bad the Black Berets had him marked for death …
To the average citizen, the Lion of Salvador was a national hero, a military general of such renown that his accolades spanned two continents. To those in the know, however, the man was the cruelest of drug lords, a savage despot building an unstoppable empire that ranged from the Central American jungle to the bustling streets of New York.
Enter the five-man special ops team known for taking down the worst of enemies around the world. The Black Berets have been tagged to put an end to the Lion’s reign of terror. But how do you kill a man the world lauds as an untouchable hero?
- The Night of the Jaguar
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 2/20/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Contract: Terror Summit
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 2/20/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
Five nuclear bombs are in the hands of an unidentified madman somewhere in the Sahara. Or so the Black Berets have been led to believe.
When a bloody raid in Libya turns up nothing but a camp of terrorists who know nothing about any bombs, the elite American fighters find themselves ordered to Portugal to follow up a new lead. Once there, they learn every undercover agent from every country working in Portugal has been taken out of play, leaving the door wide open for staging an apocalyptic attack. If the Black Berets fail to locate the bombs and take out the merciless cabal that stole them, it could mean the end of the world as they know it. For these five warriors, the stakes have never been higher.
- Contract: Terror Summit
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 2/20/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Louisiana Firestorm
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
The Black Berets have met the enemy—and he lives next door!
Letting a struggling Chicano gas company run its pipeline across their Louisiana land struck the Black Berets as a good idea—especially once Cowboy got an eyeball on Isabella Cifuentes, its stunning, sultry president. But the contract, it seemed, contained some very fine and lethal print.
A Texas oil magnate allied with a fanatical right-wing cult had made an unholy alliance to keep the territory free of Mexicans and competition—even if it meant taking his grievance to the people next door.
But when your neighbors happen to be a quintet of renegade warriors, your backyard may become a burying ground … and the bone you came to pick may just turn out to be your own!
- Louisiana Firestorm
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Death Machine Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
The main event is manslaughter.
Someone wanted to overthrow the government of San Sebastian, a country whose tiny army, nonaligned status, and location on the deadly curve of Central America made it ripe for subversion. The first try was an attempted hit on its president on a crowded street in Washington. The second was an invasion from the sea.
Both times the Black Berets were there to keep the worst from happening. But how long could five men and one boy hold out against an army of the world’s most skilled assassins? An army with limitless resources—and the patience to keep on killing?
- The Death Machine Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Red Man Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
The Black Berets are back—and headed straight into a massacre.
In Mesa County, Nevada, the tide of history was about to change. A tiny tribe of Indigenous Americans had just beaten the white man in his own court—and won title to some of the richest land in America. But some people were poor losers. And if they couldn’t hold on to the land … they’d simply eliminate its rightful owners.
With a handful of poorly armed Native Americans facing a lynch mob led by the county sheriff and backed by corporate millions, Mesa County might be the setting for another Wounded Knee. Until the Black Berets get in on the action and show how professionals handle a massacre.
- The Red Man Contract
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 1/16/24
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Deadly Reunion
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
The Black Berets learned their lethal skills on the secret battlefields of Vietnam. In this classic novel of wartime adventure, once the Black Berets start fighting for themselves, what will it take to be able to stop them?
They were the most elite team of interservice fighters America’s government had ever formed. As war raged in Vietnam, the Black Berets took on the most secret—and most heinous—of covert operations. Now they’re back, and they have a new mission.
Eight years after their bloody exploits across the battlefields of Asia, the five-man team is reunited at the behest of their scheming CIA handler, a man none of them trusts after a dirty war of lies and betrayals. However, word has it one of their own, thought long-dead, is alive and being held prisoner in Laos. Shaking off the cobwebs of civilian life, the Black Berets must rehone their skills to become a flawless killing machine once more. Eager to get back in the game, they’re ready for action. But who can they really trust?
- Deadly Reunion
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Cold Vengeance
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
The Black Berets have fought for their country, for money, and for thrills … now they’re fighting for cold vengeance, as the classic series of wartime adventure continues.
They’d survived everything the Vietcong could throw at them. Now they’d throw it back … at the American renegade who’d betrayed them.
The Black Berets had to hand it to Parkes, their former CIA case officer. First he’d sent them on a suicide mission to Vietnam. Then he’d sent some CIA hit men to finish them off when the enemy couldn’t. And the moment they set foot stateside, the world’s meanest mercenaries found that Parkes had arranged another lethal welcome.
Well, they’d never liked Parkes much. But how were they going to tell him? First they had to find him, and that would take Beeker, Rosie, Cowboy, Harry, and Marty, from the bayous of Louisiana to an academy of terror in the Libyan desert, where they’d get a chance to say just what they had in mind—with bullets and a body bag.
- Cold Vengeance
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Black Palm
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
A band of terrorists in a Caribbean paradise are up against the Black Berets, the deadliest fighters on the planet!
The Black Palm called themselves a nation, though their own people had cast them out. They called themselves an army, but made war on unarmed men, women, and children. And in their fanatical crusade, they might strike anywhere. Even in the tiny Caribbean republic of New Neuzen.
The only thing that stood between New Neuzen and a terrorist bloodbath were five American tourists. Those tourists happened to be the Black Berets, the dirtiest—and deadliest—warriors on earth. And they had not come to New Neuzen for a vacation. Unless your idea of a holiday is total war!
- The Black Palm
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By Michael McDowell and John Preston
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 12/12/23
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- The Storytellers
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Edited by Mark Rubinstein
Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 7/20/21
Formats: Trade Paperback, Trade Print ARC
Have you ever read a suspense novel so good you had to stop and think to yourself, “How did the author come up with this idea? Their characters? Is some of this story real?” For over five years, Mark Rubinstein, physician, psychiatrist, and mystery and thriller writer, had the chance to ask the most well-known authors in the field just these kinds of questions in interviews for the Huffington Post.
Collected here are interviews with forty-seven accomplished authors, including Michael Connelly, Ken Follett, Meg Gardiner, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, and Don Winslow. These are their personal stories in their own words, much of the material never before published. How do these writers’ life experiences color their art? Find out their thoughts, their inspirations, their candid opinions. Learn more about your favorite authors, how they work and who they truly are.
- The Storytellers
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Edited by Mark Rubinstein
Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 7/20/21
Formats: Trade Paperback, Trade Print ARC
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- Canadian Red
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By R. W. Stone
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 7/01/18
Formats: Trade Paperback
The first time the Donovan twins, Lucas and Jamie, saw a Canadian Northwest Mounted Police officer, they knew that’s what they wanted to be when they grew up. Years later, Lucas Donovan, now a member of the force, is on a mission to bring a ruthless serial killer to justice. For years Jack Emerson has eluded capture in the vast Canadian wilderness, but now Donovan has vowed that nothing on earth will stop him from seeing this man caught and punished. The oath is both personal and professional, since one of the men Emerson killed ruthlessly was Constable Jamie Donovan, Lucas’ twin brother.
Believing that he understands more about Emerson than any other man, but restricted by the policies of the force, Donovan is forced to take administrative leave to carry out his quest for revenge. Accompanied by Red, his enormous Malamute sled dog, Donovan begins his quest and crosses the border into the US. Aside from chasing a dangerous murderer, the long pursuit presents special dangers of its own as the two fight for survival in an unfamiliar and unfriendly country where nature takes a toll on all.
When the time finally comes for the two men to meet, Lucas Donovan must decide between personal and professional honor. When he became a Canadian Mounted Police Constable, Donovan took an oath to enforce and obey the law. However, the standards he has lived by are now in conflict with his burning desire for revenge. His decision on which course of action he will pursue could result in disgrace or death. But Donovan is led by the creed of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police that a Mountie always gets his man.
- Canadian Red
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By R. W. Stone
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 7/01/18
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Greasy Grass
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 1/01/18
Formats: Trade Paperback
Johnny D. Boggs turns the battlefield itself into a character in this historical retelling of Custer’s Last Stand, when George Custer led most of his command to annihilation at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in southern Montana in 1876.
More than forty first-person narratives are used—Indian and white, military and civilian, men and women—to paint a panorama of the battle itself.
Boggs brings the events and personalities of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to life in a series of first-hand accounts.
- Greasy Grass
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 1/01/18
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Long Texan
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 10/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
Two thrilling Western stories set in Arizona, in which strong and silent cowboys use their wits to overcome bullies while avoiding gunplay as much as possible
The first story, “Scalisi Claws Leather,” is set in Arizona during the Prohibition era. The notorious Chicago gangster Pete Scalisi has come to the Bar BQ dude ranch to hide out for a while. He has only contempt for the hicks he encounters at the Bar BQ, but waitress Rose Dunn and top cowhand Jim Falconer show him a thing or two. Scalisi has some lessons to learn about Westerners, and he will have to learn them the hard way.
In the title story, “Long Texan,” Boone Sibley arrives in Tough Nut, Arizona, just in time to save a small child that wanders into the line of fire in a shootout. But instead of getting a hero’s welcome, saving the kid puts Sibley on the wrong side of Whip Quinn and his gang, who are used to doing as they please with no one standing against them. Quinn suggests that Tucson would be a better place for Sibley. But Sibley embodies the code of the West, and says he likes the climate and the people in Tough Nut, and that’s where he plans to stay. But if that’s what he wants, he has to first deal with Quinn framing him for stage robbery and murder.
- Long Texan
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 10/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Across the Río Bravo
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By R. W. Stone
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 8/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
Retired US Army sergeant Thaddeus McCallum joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency, where he makes enough money to purchase the ranch he’s always wanted.
But just as McCallum begins to settle in to his new life, he receives an urgent letter from a former comrade in arms, whose son Jeff has gone missing. Despite his age and the aches and pains that go with it, Thad decides that he owes it to the man to help. Pedro Peralta, who ordinarily would be left behind to manage the ranch, insists on accompanying Thad on his journey.
The men soon learn that Columbus, New Mexico, was the site of an attack by Pancho Villa and his army of revolutionaries, and young Jeff has been taken prisoner. As they pursue Jeff into the wastelands of northern Mexico, Thad and Pedro must overcome an entire army to save him.
- Across the Río Bravo
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By R. W. Stone
Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 8/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Poison Spring
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 5/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
“That was the year we had no food.”
It’s the spring of 1864, and times are hard in Washington County, Arkansas, especially for thirteen-year-old Travis Ford. He hasn’t heard from his father, a sergeant in the Second Arkansas Cavalry, in months. His mother is struggling to make ends meet on the family farm and abandoned sawmill near Poison Spring. All Travis really wants to do is to follow his passion—make up adventure stories in the style of Alexandre Dumas. But the Civil War keeps getting in his way. Since his mother hails from Illinois and has Abolitionist leanings, the Ford family—including Travis’ twin sister, Edith, and their seven-year-old brother, Baby Hugh—has few friends to turn to for help, only eccentric Miss Mary Frederick, who owns a cotton plantation down the road, and Uncle Willard Ford, a slave trader in nearby Camden. For the most part, Anna Louella Ford and her children find themselves alone, and they are about to become even more isolated.- Poison Spring
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 5/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- Wreaths of Glory
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 4/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
William Clarke Quantrill was a hated name during the War between the States by the Federals of the Union Army as well as by many non-combatants. Even the high command of the Confederacy distrusted him. But there were others who were passionate sympathizers. He was both friend and mentor‚ but also manipulator and opportunist.
Alistair Durant was someone who came to know him in all these guises. Durant was a young Confederate soldier‚ captured by the Yankees‚ and released when he took an oath never again to bear arms against the Union. He had a long walk back to his home in Clay County, Missouri. It is on this trek that Alistair meets another youngster‚ Beans Kimbrough.
The two become companions and then friends on the way to Clay County, and it is there that Beans will introduce Alistair to a man calling himself Charley Hart. Hart has a fantastic plan—to organize a militia to fight against the Federals.
- Wreaths of Glory
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 4/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
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- And There I’ll Be a Soldier
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 3/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback
Tormented by Southern partisans, Missouri farm boy Caleb Cole joins the Union’s Eighteenth Missouri. About the same time, down on the Texas coast, violin-playing Ryan McCalla, from a well-to-do family, enlists in the Confederacy’s Second Texas—mainly in the spirit of adventure—with some friends.
The two teenagers are about to grow up quickly.
Fate will bring the two together—along with a teenage girl from Corinth, Mississippi, when the Confederate and Union armies clash at Shiloh, Tennessee, and then again in the town of Corinth.
They will learn that war is far from glorious.
- And There I’ll Be a Soldier
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Read by Chris Abell
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Release Date: 3/01/17
Formats: Trade Paperback