Schumpeter once wrote that the Stock market is a poor substitute for the holy grail. In other words, capitalism is more or less incapable of producing belief in itself. And yet, there are people who do believe in it. Ziad Abdelnour is one of them. ForMeet the Giants: An Interview with Ziad Abdelnour

Charlie has been a guest and a prisoner of the dictator of Batanga for 12 years when he has an affair with the dictator's favorite wife. After the wife is tortured, Charlie extradites himself to America, and stands trial for an old murder. The crime is investigated, reconstructedPhillip Margolin, Fugitive, read by Jonathan Davis

The House of UnAmerican Activities Committee (on which sits Dick Nixon) is looking for Communists, and finds a few poor schmucks in Hollywood. Some Jews are inquisitioned, black-listed, and disappeared from the credits. Their words are found in screenplays by unknowns from Wyoming and Maine. Other JewsBeverly Hills Dead by Stuart Woods read by Tony Roberts

"Your cigar fell down. You told me how good it was and how all the women liked your big cigar. We hardly started smoking and your cigar fell down." It is Havana radio. The whores are called hinateras, jockeys, to describe the way a girl might ride a pig.Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith read by Frank Muller

As tempting and tasty as yellow cake are these novels about single but not terribly singular women, suddenly alone or suddenly in trouble or suddenly displaced. If they had worked they become domestic, if they had had money they no longer do, if they had been married, they are divorced,Nosy Neighbor by Fern Michaels read by Andrea Gallo

What happens to a hard cop in a hard city in an era below good and evil.Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh

Although less terrible than usual, Brick can't do funny. And this book can be funny. The ram rod straight CIA trainer; the queer, ruthless, demented Director of Operations; the stubborn, nerdish, accidentally lucky pseudo-operative determined to avenge his murdered girlfriend..... Then of course he bumps into a woman who canThe Amateur: A Novel of Revenge by Robert Littell read by Scott Brick

The perfect voice for a down and out in London and Iraq crime novel, with an entry quote by Orwell. Always a good sign, Orwell. Imagine a classic sting by a pretty girl and her boyfriend: girl alone at bar gets hit by her bruiser boyfriend. Retired police detective comesThe Wreckage by Michael Robotham read by Sean Barrett

When the big brained businessmen of Europe come home, they don't want brainy, brilliant, succulent text. They want fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid words popping out of fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid secretarial types. On heels. They want to come to America, for a night. And wake up inDrek, in pink: Wolves in Chic Clothing by Karasyov and Kargman, read by Gasteyer

This short sharp tale of a dominant woman D.A. who loves political office far too well adds new personae to the genealogy of Cornwell's anger. Monique Lamonte, a moneyed, manipulative, Harvardy alpha female; Winn, her cop investigator pretty boy with a tarot-reading grandmother and a taste for Hugo Boss andAt Risk by Patricia Cornwell read by Kate Reading

Holly is a youngish, prettyish, slightly loopy, Dublinite whose happy husband tells her what to do. Everybody jokes that if Gerry ever died, he would have to leave her a list ... and when he dies, he does. Leave a list. Sort of. Holly is given 10 envelopes, with instructions,P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

It's always interesting to explore a place through its crime scenes. Like the not yet totally gentrified neighborhoods of Northwest Philadelphia, on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River. Which runs through this mystery as it runs through Pennsylvania. All along the river young women are being murderedMerciless by Rich Montanari read by Scott Brick

Good idea, poorly executed.Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Read by Ron McLarty

It is not unusual for women's books to lay out women in groups, like a plate of madeleines, a silver tray of cream cakes. But this circle of quilters is not a dainty or delicate array. Chiaverini quilts stories about a dozen or so women who quilt, whose separate livesJennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilting Series narrated by Christina Moore

A happy surgeon falls over face down into an open gall bladder and is exiled from his caste of four: the AMA, the Hospital, the HMO, the elite medical partnership operating out of Boston. The sad misadventures of a circus of medical accountants, gatekeepers, technocrats, and insurance agents sets theThe Society by Michael Palmer read by J. Charles