Corporate greed, insider trading, fraud, inflated egos, political intrigue, Milken, Boesky, Giuliani. Ah, the '80s! What will early 21st-century business leaders do to top the escapades of their forebears? Let's hope we don't find out. This exhaustively researched story is at once appalling and fascinating, and narrator Johnny Heller keeps the story moving. His voice is the embodiment of 1980s style: brash, freewheeling, uneven, and compelling. But he reads too fast at times, and it's obvious on the tapes where he had to go back and rerecord. He also makes notable pronunciation mistakes. Despite all that, his pacing is brisk and entertaining. R.I.G.
(c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2003
Duration: 19 hrs, 45 mins
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
An interesting Ozark history that doesn’t quite cohere.
Author Hale presents the case of his young cousin Haley's disappearance on Cave Mountain in 2001 and the ensuing search and rescue operation, the largest in Arkansas history. Hale connects this with the murder of 3-year-old Bethany by a small and isolated religious sect decades earlier on the same mountain. Narrating these two stories in a low, slightly gruff tone, Hale weaves together family anecdotes, Ozark lore, local and broader history, and Christian theology. While the two cases are intriguing, the work lacks focus and contains extraneous details.
An interesting Ozark history that doesn’t quite cohere.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
Duration: 11 hrs, 9 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063398153
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
A fascinating look into the history and operations of the worldwide Mafia, replete with revelations and insights.
This may be one of the most comprehensive works on organized crime ever written, beginning with crime organizations more than a thousand years before the Mafia existed. Nathan Osgood carefully delivers the work, allowing listeners to take in the sometimes-incredible implications. Perhaps Gingeras could have scaled back the first two hours of the work, which detail the rise of criminal organizations like Japan's yakuza, China's tongs, and many others over the centuries before finally getting to the modern-day Mafia. But once he gets to the late 1800s, the audiobook comes to life as the roots of the Mafia are laid bare and facts fly like bullets on Valentine's Day.
A fascinating look into the history and operations of the worldwide Mafia, replete with revelations and insights.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
Duration: 14 hrs, 35 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668104569
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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