Tombstoning


Doug Johnstone - 2006
    What do you do?Well, if you're David Lindsay from Arbroath, you get the hell out of there and don't return. Not for at least fifteen years. Until Nicola Cruickshank - yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to approach - gets in touch and asks - no, demands - that you go back for a school reunion. To the place where it happened. The place you've been running from for fifteen years. Of course you go. Not to belatedly lay your mate to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn't going to lay any ghosts to rest. And when someone else takes a dive off the cliffs - an act the locals have taken to calling 'tombstoning' - while David's there, he has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people keep dying around him . . .

You Can't Stop Me


Max Allan Collins - 2010
    Harrow made headlines when he apprehended a would-be presidential assassin - only to come home that night and find his wife and son brutally murdered. This tragic twist of fate launched his career as the host of reality TV's smash-hit, Crime Seen!

Devil's Keep


Phillip Finch - 2010
    Not Ray Favor. He killed with the ease of flipping a light switch. ONE SHOT AT REDEMPTION A decade ago, Ray Favor was a remorseless killer for the Black Ops cell Bravo One Nine. He did what he was hired to do out of patriotism and duty. Now, having amassed a fortune but deeply troubled by his past and suspicious of his own nature, Favor is motivated by something more: a chance to right the wrongs he committed and restore balance. He gets that chance deep in the Philippines, where the disappearance of two teenagers leads Favor and his Bravo team to confront an illegal operation by the Russian mob — and an evil so deplorable that it can only be righted by the means Favor once used to wreak destruction. Now, driven by a hungry sense of purpose, Ray Favor will seek retribution by any means necessary. And exact a violent justice without mercy — or regret.First in Phillip Finch's stunning new series, Devil's Keep is a suspense-packed international thriller introducing a powerful, complex, and memorable action hero.

October Skies


Alex Scarrow - 2008
    He's discovered what's left of the Preston Group, a convoy of settlers that vanished in the winter of 1856. It's clear that something horrific happened here all those years ago, but Cooke can only find a few tantalising clues. 1856: as early snows descend, the eclectic group of settlers that form the Preston wagon train are forced to dig in. Miles from any kind of civilisation, they see the group of Native Americans also trapped nearby as their greatest threat. But they soon realise what true danger is. When a woman is found murdered, appallingly mutilated, one of the Indian party struggles wounded back to camp, whispering of unspeakable evil as he dies. United by fear, the settlers and the Indians must protect themselves against whatever is lurking in the woods. But as suspicion and panic grow, perhaps their own terror will be just as dangerous. Or maybe, whatever's out there is worse than anything they can imagine. Back in the present day, as Cooke unravels the mystery, he must question if the horror he is uncovering was in fact only the start of something much worse... A gruesome thriller of suspense and a chilling look at the breeding grounds of evil, Alex Scarrow's new novel will fascainte and terrify you in equal measure.

The Smoke Room


Earl Emerson - 2005
    In his remarkable new thriller, Emerson fuses together a gripping drama with unforgettable scenes of peril that, in this realm, can explode at any second.Jason Gun, a risk-taking rookie firefighter who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, has found in his firehouse the family he never had as a child. Then, in one ill-fated turn of events, it all begins to go wrong.A bizarre accident brings a thrill-seeking woman into Engine Company 29–and into Jason’s life. Suddenly, his future on the job is at risk. Two fellow firefighters know that he missed a call because of some sexual heroics at the wrong time and place. Now, deeply in their debt, he will find out what kind of men his partners really are.When these two firefighters come upon a fortune in missing bearer bonds–money found in a dead man’s house–Jason is forced to become an accessory to their crime. And when evidence of their greed, foolishness, and thievery begins to emerge, Jason is witness to an even darker deed.Suddenly, the twenty-four-year-old, who only wanted to do the right thing, is trapped behind a wall of silence. Trying to undo his mistake, Jason moves further into the darkness, where a beautiful young woman might just be his emotional rescue–or yet one more very wrong move. Unfortunately for Jason, the worst isn’t behind him. Like a fire hit by wind, the killing has raged out of control.Capturing the thin line that separates a hero from a criminal, and an enemy from a friend, Earl Emerson’s new novel is a gripping tale of a man’s dangerous fall from grace–and of his fierce battle for redemption.

Without Prejudice


Andrew Rosenheim - 2008
    Without Prejudice is a compulsive story of race and the dangers that can lie in the past.

The Baboons Who Went This Way and That


Alexander McCall Smith - 2006
    A man with a tree growing out of his head? A woman with children made of wax? A bird that can be milked? Let Alexander McCall Smith once again take you to a land where the bizarre is everyday and magic is real, with more illustrated stories from his celebration of African folktales.

2 in the Hat


Raffi Yessayan - 2010
    Even the mayor’s Street Saviors taskforce of ex-cons, devoted to steering kids out of the thug life, are working overtime to stop the bloodshed. But who will stop the even greater threat that’s about to descend when a murderous psychopath steps out of the past?Memories of the infamous Blood Bath Killer still loom large, especially for homicide detective Angel Alves, who helped bring down the multiple-murderer whose rampage shocked the city. So when a pair of students turn up bizarrely slain, Alves fears that another serial killer is stalking Boston. A fear that becomes fact when his ex-partner, Wayne Mooney, recognizes the murders as the work of the Prom Night Killer—whose unsolved crimes have haunted Mooney for a decade. Now, with hands-on assistant DA Conrad Darget backing them, Alves and Mooney set out to stop grim history from repeating itself. But matching wits with a twisted mind is a dangerous game. Especially when there are no rules—and your allies really may be your enemies. Mixing edgy psychological suspense, hard-boiled realism, and staccato bursts of pulse-quickening action, 2 in the Hat makes another slam-dunk winning case for Raffi Yessayan, hailed by Robin Moore, author of The French Connection, as “the best prosecutor-turned-crime-writer to hit the streets since George V. Higgins and Scott Turow.”

Promise Bridge


Eileen Clymer Schwab - 2010
    "This is a promise bridge, and it bridges a promise flowing from your heart to mine. It can't never be broken...the promise is part of you now, understand." Thus begins an unlikely friendship between Hannelore Blessing, a plantation mistress, and a slave girl named Livie. As the young women are launched on a harrowing journey of awakening filled with shared risks and nurtured promises amid whispers of the Underground Railroad and the rising tension preceding the Civil War, they discover their ability to trust, love, and ultimately take action.Aided by Colt, a devoted suitor hoping to win her heart, Hannah comes to understand that true friendship means letting go, so that Livie can be free to find a life and destiny all her own. However, a vicious slave catcher stalks the two women-and his unseemly motives and relentless pursuit threaten all that Hannah holds dear, as well as put her loved ones in unimaginable danger.

Winston's War


Michael Dobbs - 2002
    Two men meet. One is elderly, the other in his twenties. One will become the most revered man of his time, and the other known as the greatest of traitors.Winston Churchill met Guy Burgess at a moment when the world was about to explode. Now in his astonishing new novel, Michael Dobbs throws brilliant fresh light upon Churchill's relationship with the Soviet spy and the twenty months of conspiracy, chance and outright treachery that were to propel Churchill from outcast to messiah and change the course of history.

Monster Republic


Ben Horton - 2009
    And he watched it shaking its hideous head. "That's not me. You're not me."As commercial and compelling as a computer game, this is the first book in a major new series.

Killing for the Company


Chris Ryan - 2011
    He catches a woman eavesdropping on a meeting the group is holding with the P.M. The group's interests include arms manufacture and what Chet and the woman overhear seems to imply that it is bribing the Prime Minister to take his country to war.

Devil's Dream


Madison Smartt Bell - 2009
    With the same eloquence, dramatic energy, and grasp of history that marked his previous works, Madison Smartt Bell gives us a wholly new vantage point from which to view this complicated American figure. Considered a rogue by the upper ranks of the Confederate Army, who did not properly use his talents, Forrest was often relegated to small-scale operations.In Devil's Dream, Bell brings to life an energetic, plainspoken man who does not tolerate weakness in himself or in those around him. We see Forrest on and off the battlefield, in less familiar but no less revealing moments of his life: courting the woman who would become his wife; battling a compulsion to gamble; overcoming his abhorrence of the army bureaucracy to rise to its highest ranks. We see him treating his slaves humanely even as he fights to ensure their continued enslavement, and in battle we see his knack for keeping his enemy unsettled, his instinct for the unexpected, and his relentless stamina.As Devil's Dream moves back and forth in time, providing prismatic glimpses of Forrest, a vivid portrait comes into focus: a rough, fierce man with a life fill of contradictions.

Vrin: Ten Mortal Gods


John Michael Hileman - 2006
    But if this is a computer-generated world, then how can he reconcile the complexity of its inhabitants, people capable of frustration, joy, and pain? Are they simulations, or something more? And what about the abilities which allow him to create or control whatever he wishes? Is he a god, as the people of Vrin believe? Grappling with his new-found powers, haunted by a conversation with scientists on the outside, and stalked by a mad god, Tardin must unravel an impossible mystery—to save a world that is not his own.

Countdown: The Liberators


Tom Kratman - 2011
    Old soldier Wes Stauer is dying inside, from sheer lack of purpose.And then comes the knock on the door: "Our leader's son and heir has been kidnapped. We don't know where he is. We need you to get him back for us. The people who have him are numerous, warlike, and well armed. But money is no object."And then old soldiers - sailor and airmen, too - stop fading away and come back into sharp focus.