Audiobooks by April Smith

From the widely praised author of the FBI Special Agent Ana Grey series and A Star for Mrs. Blake, this riveting epic drama follows the Kusek family from New York City to America's heartland, where they are caught up in the panic of McCarthyism, a smear campaign, a sensational trial, and, ultimately, murder. Calvin Kusek, a WWII pilot and attorney, and his wife, Betsy, escape the 1950s conformity of New York City to relocate to a close-knit town in South Dakota. They settle on a ranch and Betsy becomes a visiting nurse, befriending a quirky assortment of rural characters. Their children, Jo and her brother Lance, grow up caring for animals and riding rodeo. Life isn't easy, but it is full and rewarding. When a seat in the State Assembly becomes available, Cal jumps at the chance to repay the community and serves three popular terms. Things change when Cal runs for the U.S. Senate. The FBI investigates Betsy, and a youthful dalliance with the Communist Party surfaces to haunt the Kuseks. Mass hysteria takes over, inflamed by Cal's political enemies. Driven by fear and hate, their neighbors turn, condemning them as enemies and spies. The American Dream falls apart overnight as the Kuseks try to protect their children from the nightmare that follows. The family is vindicated in a successful libel lawsuit, but the story doesn't end there: years later, Lance Kusek and his wife and son are brutally attacked, and the mystery then unfolds as to who committed this coldblooded murder, and are they related to the stunning events of decades earlier? From the Hardcover edition.

April Smith (Author), Cady McClain (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Star for Mrs. Blake: A Novel

The United States Congress in 1929 passed legislation to fund travel for mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I to visit their sons graves in France. Over the next three years, 6,693 Gold Star Mothers made the trip. In this emotionally charged, brilliantly realized novel, April Smith breathes life into a unique moment in American history, imagining the experience of five of these women. They are strangers at the start, but their lives will become inextricably intertwined, altered in indelible ways. These very different Gold Star Mothers travel to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery to say final good-byes to their sons and come together along the way to face the unexpected: a death, a scandal, and a secret revealed. None of these pilgrims will be as affected as Cora Blake, who has lived almost her entire life in a small fishing village off the coast of Maine, caring for her late sisters three daughters, hoping to fill the void left by the death of her son, Sammy, who was killed on a scouting mission during the final days of the war. Cora believes she is managing as well as can be expected in the midst of the Depression, but nothing has prepared her for what lies ahead on this unpredictable journey, including an extraordinary encounter with an expatriate American journalist, Griffin Reed, who was wounded in the trenches and hides behind a metal mask, one of hundreds of "tin noses" who became symbols of the war. With expert storytelling, memorable characters, and beautiful prose, April Smith gives us a timeless story, by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, set against a footnote of history - - little known, yet unforgettable. From the Hardcover edition.

April Smith (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Narrator)

Audiobook

White Shotgun

Special Agent Ana Grey—intense, unpredictable, brilliant—returns in an electrifying new novel of suspense. Even on leave from the FBI, Ana can't kick old habits: when she witnesses a drive-by shooting at an Italian restaurant in London, she helps the injured and gives testimony to the police. Still, it comes as a shock when, soon after, the Bureau contacts her—not because they want her to investigate the shooting, but because they want her to investigate the half sister she never knew she had, Cecilia, who lives in Siena and is married to Nicosa, a coffee mogul with some suspicious connections. Settling into their home under false pretenses is the least of the complications Ana encounters. The entire city of Siena is gearing up for its legendary horse race, the Palio—the dazzling annual culmination of ancient rivalries between the city's many wards. But when her nephew is stabbed and her sister goes missing, Ana understands with painful clarity that there's more than a horse race at stake here. And for Ana herself, it will mean an almost impossible choice between duty and family.

April Smith (Author), Deirdre Lovejoy (Narrator)

Audiobook

Judas Horse

Emotionally vulnerable after a shooting incident, Ana has just returned to the job when she learns that a fellow agent has been murdered by a group of hard-core anarchists operating behind the façade of FAN (Free Animals Now). Dispatched to the FBI's infamous undercover school to learn the art of deceit, Ana takes on the identity of a down-on-her-luck animal lover determined to save the wild mustangs of the West. Now she's ready to work her way into the inner circle of Julius Emerson Phelps, the unstable, charismatic leader of a "family" of outcasts who live on an isolated farm in Oregon, and who are preparing an act of terrorism Phelps has dubbed "the Big One." The stakes increase significantly when Ana learns that Phelps is playing his own game of dangerous deception, and that he possesses a stockpile of dirty secrets about the Bureau sufficient to blow it sky-high. With razor-sharp realism, Smith renders the psychological vise of a deep-cover agent living a lie 24/7. Negotiating a minefield of loyalty and betrayal, under constant threat of discovery, Ana is forced to commit the very crime she's determined to stop.

April Smith (Author), April Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Good Morning, Killer: An Ana Grey Mystery

An electrifying new thriller that brings back the complex, strong-willed, often-maverick FBI agent-Ana Grey-whom we first met in the author's stunning debut novel, North of Montana. This time Special Agent Grey is working on a kidnapping case-a fifteen-year-old named Juliana has been abducted in Santa Monica. Grey's counterpart in the Santa Monica Police Department is Detective Andrew Berringer. They've worked together before-and they've been more than just working together ever since. It's Ana's job "to know the victim as if she were my own flesh and blood." But when Juliana turns up-traumatized into a state of total and paralyzing terror-it becomes clear that Ana has gone too far: she is viewing her own life from the perspective of Juliana's blasted emotional terrain. And in a moment of passion (Andrew has betrayed her) and panic (is it possible that he also means to harm her?) Ana points a gun at him and shoots. Now she is both criminal investigator and criminal as she breaks her bail agreement to continue tracking the abductor, torn between her powerful emotional connection with Juliana and the fraying connection she has to her own common sense and to the truths she knows about Andrew-and about herself. Psychologically acute and unstoppably suspenseful-Good Morning, Killer is a searing, addictive read.

April Smith (Author), Kathe Mazur (Narrator)

Audiobook

Be the One

From the author of North of Montana ("The writing has the taut, perfect tone of a well-tuned string"--Scott Turow), a spellbinding new thriller about ambition taken to unexpected, and deadly, extremes. Cassidy Sanderson is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers--the only female scout in the major leagues. Hard-living and hard-drinking, a gifted athlete herself, she takes pride in successfully competing in a male world. But recently she has been losing prospects on the sign, and her job security is teetering on the edge. When she gets a tip from a close friend and fellow scout about Alberto Cruz, a young phenom in the Dominican Republic, she impulsively catches a flight to Santo Domingo--even though it is out of her territory and she will undoubtedly incur her boss's wrath. If Alberto Cruz is as good as she's been told, the trip will be worth the risk. The risk starts quickly. Not only has Cruz "got it all--the heart, the guts, the aptitude," he may also have "a bad spirit on him." And he's not the only man Cassidy meets on the island who might change her life for good or ill. The other is Joe Galinis, a powerful financier and real estate developer, "one of the most provocative men she has ever met." When Cassidy returns to Los Angeles, she finds herself entangled in a blackmail scheme laced with otherworldly vodou and real-life violence: a tightening triangle of suspicion and deception that leads her to the back rooms (and backstabbing) of high-stakes sports and finance--where she is about to discover that there is a thin line between a competitor and a killer. Once again, April Smith gives us a novel of nonstop suspense--large in scope, emotionally rich, and built around a central character of striking originality and substance. It is an electrifying read.

April Smith (Author), Linda Hamilton (Narrator)

Audiobook