Episodes

  • Michael Cannell - Blood and the Badge
    Jan 15 2025

    For the first time in forty years, former New York Times editor Michael Cannell unearths the full story behind two ruthless New York cops who acted as double agents for the Mafia.


    No episode in NYPD history surpasses the depravities of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two decorated detectives who covertly acted as mafia informants and paid assassins in the Scorsese world of 1980s Brooklyn.


    For more than ten years, Eppolito and Caracappa moonlighted as the mob’s early warning alert system, leaking names of mobsters secretly cooperating with the government and crippling investigations by sharing details of surveillance, phone taps and impending arrests. The Lucchese boss called the two detectives his crystal ball: Whatever detectives knew, the mafia soon learned. Most grievously, Eppolito and Caracappa earned bonuses by staging eight mob hits, pulling the trigger themselves at least once.


    Incredibly, when evidence of their wrongdoing arose in 1994, FBI officials failed to muster an indictment. The allegations lay dormant for a decade and were only revisited due to relentless follow up by Tommy Dades, a cop determined to break the cold case before his retirement. Eppolito and Caracappa were finally tried and then sentenced to life in prison in 2009, nearly thirty years after their crimes took place.


    Cannell’s Blood and the Badge is based on entirely new research and never-before-released interviews with mobsters themselves, including Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. Eppolito and Caracappa’s story is more relevant than ever as police conduct comes under ever-increasing scrutiny.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    28 mins
  • Don Spillane - Hustling the Mob
    Jan 12 2025

    What's the difference between robbing a bank and robbing a mafia bank? Sarah and Joshua are about to find out.

    Joshua is a world class hacker and his partner, the alluring Sarah, is a master safe cracker, who make their living pillaging other criminal's bank accounts.

    An attempted assassination puts them on the run. In return for help from a Middle Eastern spy chief, they're tasked with disrupting an arms deal being negotiated by a crooked banker in the Cayman Islands.This same banker launders money for his main client, a New Jersey mafia boss.

    A huge pot of money proves too big a temptation and, in this international absorbing crime thriller, Sarah and Joshue must outsmart a growing list of bad guys.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    25 mins
  • Gregory Stout - Jackson Gamble Novels
    Jan 12 2025
    From Book 1: Nashville PI Jackson Gamble takes on a case that seems simple enough. All he has to do is find and return a fourteen-year-old girl who has disappeared from home. Gamble’s experience tells him the girl is just another runaway, but her mother insists she has been kidnapped. The search for Gabrielle sets Gamble on a path that leads him through the city’s underbelly of sex for hire, pornography, snake-handling religious fundamentalists, and perhaps a serial killer of teenaged girls. With the help of an attractive woman with a heartbreaking past of her own, he reaches the conclusion of his investigation, with results that are both tragic and unforgettable, where the smallest mistake could spell the end of both his career and his life.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    28 mins
  • Coy Hall - The Switchblade Svengali
    Dec 13 2024

    When the bell tolls midnight, it’ll be 1968.

    Royce Pembrook is living well in a new city, with new patrons, a new name, and a new trade. But he’s the same scam artist he’s been for thirty years. Since youth, Royce has made his money and found trouble in fraudulent séances that prey on the grieving widows of high society. Now he’s expanded his con, posing as a hypnotist, a Svengali, swindling everyone in Phoenix from scions of old wealth to a UFO cult led by a heroin-addicted visionary.

    Life is good. Royce has the luxury he craves. And that’s when trouble out of the past creeps into his world. Even in the domain of fake spirits, the relentless specter of murder is real, and Royce’s former life is one thing that won’t stay in the grave.

    When the bell tolls midnight for Royce Pembrook, will it be time to abscond? Or will he fight to keep all that he’s gained, no matter the violent cost to those around him?


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    29 mins
  • Dale T. Phillips - A Memory of Grief
    Dec 13 2024
    Troubled ex-con Zack Taylor is haunted by the accidental death of his brother years before. Zack's guilt and anger have pushed him into a shadowy, wandering life, with little purpose and few attachments. When he hears of the death of his close friend Ben Sterling, a supposed gunshot suicide, Zack finds he now has a purpose-- to find out what happened. Then his purpose becomes an obsession. Zack goes to Maine, where Ben died, and is a fish out of water, with no connections, no information, and no credibility. People don't want to talk about Ben's death, so Zack gets ever more frustrated, making enemies, getting into fights, and breaking the law in his search for the truth. The only bright spot seems the potential for a relationship with a sympathetic nurse-- if he can control his violent streak. To draw out the killers, Zack offers himself as bait. But without a gun, he must rely on his wits and his physical skills to survive a dangerous game of drugs and death. Though managing a measure of justice, Zack is changed in the process, and must learn to live in a very different world.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    28 mins
  • Jeffrey Ashkin - The Second Life of Jonathan Sendel
    Dec 10 2024

    Best-selling author, Jonathan Sendel has been murdered. Now, his clone must solve the mystery.

    In the near future when someone is murdered, a clone of the victim can be commissioned to help police solve the crime. This process is costly, tedious and not always successful. Memory lapses, mental implosions, and rouge clones are not uncommon. It's risky, but Jonathan has the money, the fans, and the means, and so his clone must navigate a treacherous labyrinth of secrets to reclaim the life stolen from him and put his murderer behind bars.

    Before his untimely death, Jonathan was stuck in a rut. His marriage was failing, writer's block had his Jim Starlight series at a dead-end, and his affair with a college student was about to go public. When his charred remains are found inside his remote cabin it's clear that the murderer is someone in his inner circle.

    His clone only has a matter of days to unravel the mystery before he loses the vast fortune he spent his entire life, the first one, building. As he uncovers his previous life's transgressions, the people he trusted most may have some unsavory opinions about clones. Jonathan must take his investigation into his own hands to have a chance at life.

    The Second Life of Jonathan Sendel is a twist-filled murder mystery, that examines the life of a beloved celebrity tarnished by scandal and the painful process of coming to terms with one’s own demons.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    28 mins
  • Georgia Jeffries - The Younger Girl
    Nov 24 2024

    A DARK LABYRINTH OF FAMILY BETRAYAL

    Based on a true crime, The Younger Girl, by trailblazing, award-winning writer Georgia Jeffries combines historical fiction and supernatural suspense to unravel a thrilling tale of family deception and long-denied redemption.

    In 1933, Chicago tabloids trumpeted the death of twenty-year-old town belle Aldine Younger.

    "HEIRESS SLAIN, MARRIED MAN HELD."

    In the aftermath of Aldine Younger's tragic death, her grieving brother Owen suspects that their wealthy uncle orchestrated a sinister murder plot to cover up the theft of Aldine's inheritance. Fast forward to 1996, when an aging Owen, burdened by the weight of the past, is compelled to discover the truth before he dies. His daughter, Joanna, becomes the key to unraveling the family's twisted history.

    Father and daughter journey back to Pontiac, Illinois, to claim Owen's rightful bequest. They find themselves caught in a labyrinth of lies born of family greed and treachery crossing three generations. Amidst violent storms and dramatic revelations, Owen's sanity teeters on the edge as he confuses Joanna with the sister he lost. Joanna, racing against time, unearths secrets that could shatter her world and discovers a psychic bridge linking past, present, and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    38 mins
  • David List - What are the Odds?
    Nov 23 2024

    The debut novel from screenwriter and producer David List, What Are the Odds is an entertaining, binge-worthy, and addictive crime thriller.

    Ray Dawson, a former NYPD detective unfairly forced into early retirement, never thought he would get another chance to be with his second wife and love of his life, Stephanie. So when she opens the door to the possibility, he spends his savings on an extravagant romantic getaway at a resort in Costa Rica. But Ray is still as much a cop as he is a man, and when, in the hotel elevator, he has a chance encounter with Wilbur Bailey—a wily, neurotic, and environmentally conscious fugitive with a $5 million bounty on his head—things get complicated.

    IRS Special Agent Phil Dancourt is determined to bust Mika Salko, the corrupt CEO of Houston-based Amco Oil, and believes Wilbur Bailey, an Amco analyst with a conscience, is the one guy on the inside who could help bring Salko down. But in a bizarre twist, Bailey embezzles millions and disappears, putting Phil’s job on the line. Now, after Wilbur is sighted in Costa Rica, Phil is sent to retrieve him. But from the moment he steps off the plane and crosses paths with Ray and Wilbur, nothing goes as planned.

    The encounter propels the three men into a harrowing, death-defying, life-changing, and often hilarious journey, attracting unwanted attention from a heroin-addicted dishwasher, a powerful, corrupt CEO, bloodthirsty gangs and drug cartels, and pandering government watchdogs. Along the way, they come face-to-face, in unexpected ways, with life’s larger questions: friendship, love, loss, faith, and the commitment to values larger than oneself. What results is a trio of unlikely friends, and Ray can only hope that once it’s all over, Stephanie will still be there.


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    31 mins