Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

A Secret Service agent and a hacker-turned-informant join forces to take down a global cybercriminal ring, back when there were barely laws in place to prohibit what the cyber criminals were up to. It’s the early 2000s. The Internet is still a novelty. Twitter, Facebook, and Apple’s iPhones have yet to be invented. Terms like “cyberterrorism” and “ransomware” are not yet part of the mainstream lexicon. But the information superhighway already presents an attractive route for criminals—one with infinite lanes. While his colleagues were still focused on crimes committed IRL (in real life), Steve Ward, a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service, talks his superiors into letting him embark on an unprecedented covert operation designed to discover and stop shadowy operations made possible by the Internet. Steve’s not making much headway when through a lucky break he finds himself partnered with an unlikely ally: a 20-something, Miami-born hacker named Albert Gonzalez. Albert turns informant after he’s popped for a slew of infractions that include computer crimes and possession of ecstasy and cocaine. The two prove to be radically successful in a colossal sting operation—to everyone’s surprise, including their own. But success doesn’t remain sweet. When Albert is accused of spearheading the biggest theft of credit card data at that time, he turns on Steve, attempting to implicate him in criminal malfeasance. Veteran technology journalist and Fortune writer Michal Lev-Ram, tells the gripping story of Operation Firewall, giving a rare look into the murky world of hackers and the heroes who try to catch them. Told through the eyes of Steve, other Secret Service agents, analysts, prosecutors, and former hackers and their families, Operation Firewall takes listeners through the twists and turns of this historic investigation. But Operation Firewall is much more than a tale about good versus evil—duking it out in the cyber-world. It is also the story of a friendship between two men, the partnership that unfolds, and later implodes, with high-stakes consequences.

In this gripping follow-up to his Edgar Award-nominated mystery, The Deep, Deep Snow, Brian Freeman tells the story of Rebecca Colder, a young sheriff’s deputy who faces the most excruciating choice a mother can make.

Actor Kelsey Grammer, best known for his roles in the TV sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, delivers Bitter Brew, a compelling mystery featuring Detective Bill Walsh, an upstate cop in the quiet, rural town of Beatriceville, 200 miles north of New York City, who suspects foul play in the death of millionaire city transplant Jonathan Kimball, even though the evidence points to suicide, not murder.

Two years after her brilliant and schizophrenic brother Mark's tragic suicide, Jenny Krantz discovers six voice messages that he left specifically for her.

With no police to investigate and no escape, could it be the perfect setting for a crime? Martin Schwartz (Beesley) is an undercover detective who is recovering from his wife and sons' bizarre disappearance from a cruise ship 5 years ago. He is a desperate man willing to take big risks. Martin never wanted to step onto a cruise ship again until he receives a call which can't be ignored. On average, 23 people per year disappear without a trace from cruise ships. Never before has someone come back... until now.

Evan Hart lives the good life, enjoying his job, his sports club, the occasional date - and especially his comfortable home, nestled in the thick woods surrounding his property. But that tranquility is shattered when he realizes a figure from his past has arrived in town, armed with a knife, his intentions clear from the man’s attempts to break into Evan’s house in the middle of the night.

Bravery. Honor. Sacrifice. These are more than mere words to trained Marine sniper Nathan McBride. He’s never backed away from danger and he’s not about to start now, even if it means confronting the cold-blooded interrogator who tortured him to the brink of death more than a decade ago.

Once upon a time Rolling Stone contributing editor Erik Hedegaard became the last mainstream media journalist to interview Charles Manson. But the story he wrote for RS in 2013 didn’t begin to capture the strange and lingering effect Manson would have on his life. Now, in this Audible Original, you’ll hear about the making of that story, including audio of the phone calls Hedegaard received from Manson on a regular basis, interviews he conducted with Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, as well as conversations he had with Manson Family members.

Shelby works as a dog walker in northern California, and she’s just finished up her bi-weekly trip to the park with a husky named Pluto. When she brings him back to his house, she finds his owner - Todd Burke, a well-known local businessman and founder of an organic supplements company - lying on the bathroom floor, dead. A detective arrives on the scene. As she interviews Shelby, the body is inspected by a medical examiner, and more cops search Todd’s home, it becomes clear that the victim’s life was less picture-perfect than his clean-cut persona might lead you to believe.

Gloria Burtzlaff feared for her life one day back in April of 1991 when her abusive husband, Larry, drunk and violent, slapped her, hit her, and began pelting her with glasses. After he tried to drown her in a tub, she got the family shotgun and confronted him in his underwear. “Larry, I’m going to kill you,” she declared. Defense lawyers would later claim he lifted a glass as if to say, “Have at it, sister.” Have at It, Sister is a true-crime tale about Gloria, a South Dakota woman who shot her abusive husband and was put on trial in a precedent-setting case.

Ida Pederson was an executive at ‘Nyberg Shoreline’ when she was sent to the small Northern Irish village of Port Kriel to diffuse tensions between the company and the local community. When an unexploded bomb was identified on the seabed near Nyberg’s windfarm, Ida sent a local crew of eight men to investigate. That night, only two men returned home, barely alive and unable to speak of what had happened out at sea.

In an authoritarian America, personal freedoms are at risk, information is being controlled, and legal citizens suddenly find themselves being deported. A growing resistance movement is active, angry, and looking to strike back. And a TV show for kids may be the key. Enter Celeste Montgomery and Bailey Vance. Celeste is an intern for the show that features Bailey singing and dancing with puppets. While Bailey teaches the kids about geography, Celeste is planting codes into the script, songs, background, whatever she can do to pass messages for the resistance.

Picho, voiced by the sagacious Harvey Guillén, serves as our guide through the intricate tapestry of frauds woven by his intimidating con man of a father, Pietro La Greca, played with captivating charm by the one and only Peter Stormare. Pietro, our suave protagonist, moves from one con to another, finally running Mexico’s biggest money-laundering scheme during the worst economic period in the country’s history.

From the creators of Up and Vanished and To Live and Die in L.A. comes an Audible Original true crime podcast set in the dark underworld of boxing. Tim ‘Doc’ Anderson was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his manager. So why does everyone who has known him, including his victim’s family, think he should be released? Journalist David Farrier (Dark Tourist, Tickled) explores the murky world around the boxing ring to ask: how did one of the sport’s good guys pick up a gun and fire?

Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high-school, where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents' humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate, and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley's 16th birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace, and something inside Shelley snaps.

It starts with a stranger walking into a campsite, seemingly out of nowhere. It ends with that same stranger at the Denver airport. Along the way, he has acquired a prize that will be his salvation. But the road to Easy Street can take unexpected turns. And the only certainty about a sure thing is that nothing is certain at all.

GCHQ agent Winter has just 14 days to bring down a website before a teenager is tortured to death in front of an internet audience of millions. Winter has to go deep undercover, disguised as the paid assassin Snow White, to infiltrate the criminals’ organisation and bring down the man at the heart of the dark web. Winter is razor-sharp, quick-witted and sexy, an expert in all forms of combat, master hacker and the number one field agent of British Intelligence.

The case began in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1922 and lasted for over a decade. The killer has never been found, and the case continues to fascinate true-crime aficianados. A bon vivant Episcopal minister, a not-so-virginal soprano in his choir. The wealthy wife. Her oddball brother. Their furtive maid. The snooping congregants. The bumbling detectives. And in the denouement, a trial, one of the more notable of America’s Jazz Age, covered by the likes of Damon Runyon, Dorothy Dix and James Thurber. All of it hanging on the dramatic testimony of a single, strange witness.

Iris Thomas thought she’d never have to see Sasha Everett again after Sasha seduced her husband and broke up their marriage in a devastating betrayal. But as luck would have it, when Iris’ stepdaughter, Molly, and Sasha’s daughter, Bailey, wind up in the same second-grade class at an elite private school in Los Angeles, they form an instant bond and force the two women back into each other’s lives. Iris wants to put the past behind her and support Molly, but as time goes on, she suspects that Sasha may be guilty of something even worse than adultery....

Black girls and women disappear every day, but not without a trace. Join actress and activist Erika Alexander in a neo-noir, true crime drama as she searches for Tamika Huston, a 24-year-old Black woman from Spartanburg, SC who went missing in 2004. Her case became a rallying cry for other missing Black women in America and led to a growing demand to expose a system that ignores missing girls and women of color.