-
Desperate
- An Epic Battle for Clean Water and Justice in Appalachia
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Devil Is Here in These Hills
- West Virginia’s Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom
- By: James Green
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From before the dawn of the 20th century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation's largest labor union, and the legendary "miners' angel", Mother Jones.
-
-
Phenomenal labor history, riveting narrative
- By Chris Brooks on 03-11-18
By: James Green
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
Soul Full of Coal Dust
- A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia
- By: Chris Hamby
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care.
-
-
A perfect blend of informational and interesting
- By Josh Boyle on 09-12-20
By: Chris Hamby
-
Twilight in Hazard
- An Appalachian Reckoning
- By: Alan Maimon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Alan Maimon got the assignment in 2000 to report on life in rural Eastern Kentucky, his editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal told him to cover the region "like a foreign correspondent would." And indeed, when Maimon arrived in Hazard, Kentucky, fresh off a reporting stint for the New York Times's Berlin bureau, he felt every bit the outsider. He had landed in a place in the vice grip of ecological devastation and a corporate-made opioid epidemic - a place where vote-buying and drug-motivated political assassinations were the order of the day.
-
-
Fascinating
- By orna green on 11-14-21
By: Alan Maimon
-
Wastelands
- The True Story of Farm Country on Trial
- By: Corban Addison, John Grisham - foreword
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s most powerful companies—and, miraculously, they won. Wastelands takes us into a legal battle over the future of America’s farmland and the lives of the people who found the courage to fight.
-
-
wow what a engaging eye opening story
- By Debbie on 08-06-22
By: Corban Addison, and others
-
Short Circuiting Policy
- Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States
- By: Leah Cardamore Stokes
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.
-
-
Realpolitik
- By Catherine on 12-30-20
-
The Devil Is Here in These Hills
- West Virginia’s Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom
- By: James Green
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From before the dawn of the 20th century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation's largest labor union, and the legendary "miners' angel", Mother Jones.
-
-
Phenomenal labor history, riveting narrative
- By Chris Brooks on 03-11-18
By: James Green
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
Soul Full of Coal Dust
- A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia
- By: Chris Hamby
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care.
-
-
A perfect blend of informational and interesting
- By Josh Boyle on 09-12-20
By: Chris Hamby
-
Twilight in Hazard
- An Appalachian Reckoning
- By: Alan Maimon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Alan Maimon got the assignment in 2000 to report on life in rural Eastern Kentucky, his editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal told him to cover the region "like a foreign correspondent would." And indeed, when Maimon arrived in Hazard, Kentucky, fresh off a reporting stint for the New York Times's Berlin bureau, he felt every bit the outsider. He had landed in a place in the vice grip of ecological devastation and a corporate-made opioid epidemic - a place where vote-buying and drug-motivated political assassinations were the order of the day.
-
-
Fascinating
- By orna green on 11-14-21
By: Alan Maimon
-
Wastelands
- The True Story of Farm Country on Trial
- By: Corban Addison, John Grisham - foreword
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s most powerful companies—and, miraculously, they won. Wastelands takes us into a legal battle over the future of America’s farmland and the lives of the people who found the courage to fight.
-
-
wow what a engaging eye opening story
- By Debbie on 08-06-22
By: Corban Addison, and others
-
Short Circuiting Policy
- Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States
- By: Leah Cardamore Stokes
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.
-
-
Realpolitik
- By Catherine on 12-30-20
-
There Is Nothing For You Here
- Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Fiona Hill
- Narrated by: Fiona Hill
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
-
-
Excellent book on populism, Putin, Trump and us
- By Erin on 10-08-21
By: Fiona Hill
-
Above Suspicion
- By: Joe Sharkey
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A personal look at a crime of passion describes an FBI agent's successful career, family life, and extramarital affair that ended in murder, and the guilt that drove him to confess in spite of his impenetrable government shield. In a true story of crime, guilt, and conscience, a model agent's illicit involvement with an informant leads him to commit a crime that reveals all the workings of the human heart - and the dark side of the FBI.
-
-
Excellent journalism
- By 6catz on 02-01-17
By: Joe Sharkey
-
Dopesick
- By: Beth Macy
- Narrated by: Beth Macy
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this extraordinary work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of a national drama that has unfolded over two decades. From the labs and marketing departments of big pharma to local doctor's offices; wealthy suburbs to distressed small communities in Central Appalachia; from distant cities to once-idyllic farm towns; the spread of opioid addiction follows a tortuous trajectory that illustrates how this crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.
-
-
Useful, but recommend Dreamland instead
- By Sarah on 08-27-18
By: Beth Macy
-
South to America
- A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.
-
-
An incredible achievement
- By Tom on 02-16-22
By: Imani Perry
-
Empire of Pain
- The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prize-winning and best-selling author of Say Nothing presents a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.
-
-
Full Account of the Sackler Conspiracy
- By Edward Bisch on 04-13-21
-
The Boys from Biloxi
- A Legal Thriller
- By: John Grisham
- Narrated by: Michael Beck
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia.
-
-
Long and boring
- By ATM on 10-20-22
By: John Grisham
-
Paradise
- One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire
- By: Lizzie Johnson
- Narrated by: Lizzie Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead. As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned.
-
-
Horrible,Horrible,Illiterate narration.
- By howard bascom on 09-02-21
By: Lizzie Johnson
-
Pain Hustlers
- Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup
- By: Evan Hughes
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. It was the early 2000s, a boom time for painkillers, and he developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market.
-
-
Great insight!
- By Levente Sipeki on 09-02-23
By: Evan Hughes
-
The Smartest Guys in the Room
- The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
- By: Bethany McLean
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive volume on Enron's amazing rise and scandalous fall, from an award-winning team of Fortune investigative reporters.
-
-
An excellent book, but with a missing chapter
- By Augustus T. White on 03-07-12
By: Bethany McLean
-
Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
-
-
Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
-
The Great Escape
- A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
- By: Saket Soni
- Narrated by: Saket Soni
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 2006, Saket Soni, a 28-year-old, Indian-born community organizer received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker inside a Mississippi labor camp. He and 500 other men were living in squalor in Gulf Coast “man camps,” surrounded by barbed wire, watched by armed guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid portable toilets, forced to eat moldy bread and frozen rice. Worse, lured by the promise of good work and green cards, the men had desperately scraped together up to $20,000 each to apply for this “opportunity”.
-
-
Riveting!
- By Susan M. Lewis on 10-18-23
By: Saket Soni
-
Floodpath
- The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles
- By: Jon Wilkman
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.
-
-
Incredible story
- By C. Jackson on 04-07-21
By: Jon Wilkman
Publisher's summary
Set in Appalachian coal country, this “superb” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) legal drama follows one determined lawyer as he faces a coal industry giant in a seven-year battle over clean drinking water for a West Virginia community.
For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn’t look, smell, or taste right. Could the water be the root of the health problems - from kidney stones to cancer - in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so.
For seven years, Thompson waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia’s most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. While Massey’s lawyers worked out of a gray glass office tower in Charleston known as “the Death Star”, Thompson set up shop in a ramshackle hotel in the fading coal town of Williamson. Working with fellow lawyers and a crew of young activists, Thompson would eventually uncover the ruthless shortcuts that put the community’s drinking water at risk.
Retired coal miners, women whose families had lived in the area’s coal camps for generations, a respected preacher and his brother - all put their trust in Thompson when they had nowhere else to turn. Desperate is a masterful work of investigative reporting about greed and denial, “both a case study in exploitation of the little guy and a playbook for confronting it” (Kirkus Reviews). Maher crafts a revealing portrait of a town besieged by hardship and heartbreak, and an inspiring account of one tenacious environmental lawyer’s mission to expose the truth and demand justice.
Related to this topic
-
The Price of Justice
- A True Story of Greed and Corruption
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This nonfiction legal thriller traces the 14-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history to justice. Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines - mines in which scores died unnecessarily.
-
-
A good story
- By Mr. on 10-06-13
By: Laurence Leamer
-
The Ground Breaking
- An American City and Its Search for Justice
- By: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of less than 24 hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa’s infamous “Black Wall Street” was wiped off the map - and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than 50 years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre.
-
-
Excellent book on the Tulsa Massacre
- By vivabooks on 08-15-21
By: Scott Ellsworth
-
Tulia
- Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
- By: Nate Blakeslee
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.
-
-
A Must Read
- By JOHN on 03-23-08
By: Nate Blakeslee
-
Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
-
-
Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
-
A Death in White Bear Lake
- The True Chronicle of an All-American Town
- By: Barry Siegel
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him - only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal Midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.
-
-
Really, really good book.
- By Danette on 12-23-20
By: Barry Siegel
-
Class Action
- The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law
- By: Clara Bingham, Laura Leedy Gansler
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the local iron mine began hiring women in 1975, Lois Jenson, a single mother on welfare, didn't think twice about accepting the grueling but well-paid job. What she hadn't considered was that she was entering a male-dominated society that fiercely resisted the inclusion of women, a prejudice born out in the brutal harassment of every female miner.
-
-
infuriating
- By Ron on 05-20-06
By: Clara Bingham, and others
-
The Price of Justice
- A True Story of Greed and Corruption
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This nonfiction legal thriller traces the 14-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history to justice. Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines - mines in which scores died unnecessarily.
-
-
A good story
- By Mr. on 10-06-13
By: Laurence Leamer
-
The Ground Breaking
- An American City and Its Search for Justice
- By: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of less than 24 hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa’s infamous “Black Wall Street” was wiped off the map - and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than 50 years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre.
-
-
Excellent book on the Tulsa Massacre
- By vivabooks on 08-15-21
By: Scott Ellsworth
-
Tulia
- Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
- By: Nate Blakeslee
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.
-
-
A Must Read
- By JOHN on 03-23-08
By: Nate Blakeslee
-
Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
-
-
Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
-
A Death in White Bear Lake
- The True Chronicle of an All-American Town
- By: Barry Siegel
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him - only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal Midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.
-
-
Really, really good book.
- By Danette on 12-23-20
By: Barry Siegel
-
Class Action
- The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law
- By: Clara Bingham, Laura Leedy Gansler
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the local iron mine began hiring women in 1975, Lois Jenson, a single mother on welfare, didn't think twice about accepting the grueling but well-paid job. What she hadn't considered was that she was entering a male-dominated society that fiercely resisted the inclusion of women, a prejudice born out in the brutal harassment of every female miner.
-
-
infuriating
- By Ron on 05-20-06
By: Clara Bingham, and others
-
The Farmer’s Lawyer
- The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm
- By: Sarah Vogel
- Narrated by: Sarah Vogel
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable true story of a young lawyer's impossible legal battle to stop the federal government from foreclosing on thousands of family farmers.
-
-
Great Book!!
- By Mindy Knupp on 03-13-22
By: Sarah Vogel
-
Paradise Falls
- The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe
- By: Keith O'Brien
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and other mothers loved their neighborhood on the east side of Niagara Falls. It had an elementary school, a playground, and rows of affordable homes. In the spring of 1977, pungent odors began to seep into these little houses, and it didn’t take long for worried mothers to identify the curious scent. It was the sickly-sweet smell of chemicals.
-
-
Informative!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-20-24
By: Keith O'Brien
-
Yellow Dirt
- An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
- By: Judy Pasternak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people. The Navajo worked unprotected in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued grazing their animals on sagebrush flats riddled with uranium that had been blasted from the ground.
-
-
Dirty little secret of nuclear development
- By Buretto on 08-13-20
By: Judy Pasternak
-
Floodpath
- The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles
- By: Jon Wilkman
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.
-
-
Incredible story
- By C. Jackson on 04-07-21
By: Jon Wilkman
-
The Killing of Karen Silkwood
- The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case
- By: Richard Rashke
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Rashke leads us through the myriad of charges and countercharges, theories and facts, and reaches conclusions based solely on the evidence in hand. Originally published in 1981, his audiobook offers a vivid, edgy picture of the tensions that racked this country in the 1970s. However, the volume is not only an important historical document. Complex, fascinating characters populate this compelling insider's view of the nuclear industry.
-
-
If you can get past the terrible narration. . .
- By Surrounded By Chocolate on 04-29-15
By: Richard Rashke
-
The Vapors
- A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.
-
-
If you don’t live in Arkansas…
- By JohnFern0813 on 08-14-20
By: David Hill
-
The Southern Lawyer
- Joe Hennessy Legal Thriller Series, Book 1
- By: Peter O'Mahoney
- Narrated by: Bradford Hastings
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After more than twenty years away from the law, Joe Hennessy is forced back into the courtroom. Trying to save his vineyard after years of drought, Hennessy returns to practice in Charleston, South Carolina–the city he walked away from after the murder of his ten-year-old son. When one of South Carolina’s most powerful men is charged with possessing stolen artwork, Hennessy steps forward to defend him. But as Hennessy digs into the evidence, as he navigates the truth, he finds that the criminal charges are only the start of their problems.
-
-
Enjoyed it
- By Rick 73000 on 05-11-23
By: Peter O'Mahoney
-
The Suspect
- An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle
- By: Kent Alexander, Kevin Salwen
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 27, 1996, a hapless former cop turned hypervigilant security guard named Richard Jewell spotted a suspicious bag in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, the town square of the 1996 Summer Games. Inside was a bomb, the largest of its kind in FBI and ATF history. Minutes later, the bomb remotely detonated by the attacker amid a crowd of 50,000 people. But thanks to Jewell, it only killed two and wounded 111, not the hundreds who authorities estimated could have otherwise died. With the eyes of the world on Atlanta, the games continued.
-
-
Kudos !
- By Tyree on 11-24-19
By: Kent Alexander, and others
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
-
American Fire
- Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land
- By: Monica Hesse
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shocked by a five-month arson spree that left rural Virginia reeling, Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse drove down to Accomack County to cover the trial of Charlie Smith, who pled guilty to 67 counts of arson. But Charlie wasn't lighting fires alone: he had an accomplice - his girlfriend, Tonya Bundick. Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants.
-
-
Narration is horrible
- By Bryan Campbell on 08-17-17
By: Monica Hesse
-
Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
-
-
funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
-
Get Capone
- The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Jonathan Eig blows the lid off the Al Capone story. Based on never-before-seen government documents and newly discovered letters written by Al Capone himself, Get Capone presents America's greatest gangster as you’ve never seen him before.
-
-
Get this book
- By Jonathan on 05-13-10
By: Jonathan Eig
What listeners say about Desperate
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hemera Pen
- 10-29-21
Fabulous investigative reporting
This is a wonderful book chronicling the fight for clean water and truth in the face of coal companies in West Virginia. In the lineage of “The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Empire of Pain”, Maher brings the communities and people into fully realized characters showing the challenges and drama of small town Appalachia where coal companies are both large employers and powerful forces driven by profit maximization. Centered around an epic court battle, “Desperate” is both impossible to put down and enormously educational.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!