Book picks similar to
On Desperate Seas by James Pattinson


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Sand River


James Vaughan - 2017
    He grew up at a wild time and did what he had to do to survive. The law took one view of it; he took another. And the law wouldn’t get off his back. He did time, broke out of prison. He went north, hoping to leave the past behind. But the past followed him. And now there were murder charges. Whichever way he turned, trouble was right there. This is his account of what happened. Jack was born in Charleston in 1861. His parents died early of cholera and his guardian died when he was fifteen, leaving him penniless and alone. He went west and got work as a cattle drover. He shot an outlaw who was trying to rob him. Another outlaw, named Ibbetson, got away alive. Later, he ran across a cowboy called Skeeter on a cattle drive. They met again in a saloon and Skeeter asked him to help drive a herd of horses. Jack didn’t know they were stolen. He was arrested, went to jail. During his trial, he broke out of the courthouse with another inmate, who shot a courthouse constable. After that, a rope was waiting. He went north and got work on a ranch called Sand River. For a while it looked like he’d outrun trouble. He did the job and stayed clean. But up there, range wars were being fought. Ranchers hired range detectives to handle trouble. To some, they were hired killers. One of them was Ibbetson. When they met again, Jack knew it wouldn’t end well. His past had arrived.

Say You're Sorry (DCI Campbell McKenzie #1)


Ian C.P. Irvine - 2017
    In this thrilling version, David works in a call centre in India, and Goliath is Scottish crime lord Tommy McNunn. When Scottish crime lord Tommy ‘McNunn’ commits the perfect murder, killing a corrupt policeman and framing his death on a rival, DCI Campbell McKenzie knows there is little he can do to stop a gang war and prevent McNunn taking over the whole of Scotland. However, when Tommy McNunn accidentally drives into an old age pensioner, destroys the man’s car and refuses to apologise, his ambitions are soon to be thwarted. In a modern day retelling of the biblical story ‘David Versus Goliath’, the meek topple the mighty, brains conquer brawn and good overcomes bad. DCI McKenzie versus his arch rival, Tommy McNunn. Who will win? In another classic IAN CP IRVINE thriller, just when you think you know the truth, your world is turned upside down. Hold on tight, cancel the rest of your day and take a deep, deep breathe. You'll need it. About the book. 'Say You're Sorry!' is the latest crime thriller written by Ian C.P. Irvine, one of the UK's top cyber security experts. Based upon real facts, 'Say You're Sorry!' is a page-turning, thrilling and chilling exposé of just how much our daily lives are now controlled by computers, and how an cyber expert with the right knowledge, could, if they wished, ruin your life. A cyber crime conspiracy thriller at the top its game, after reading this, you'll never want to switch on your mobile phone again. Read it now, ...or you'll be sorry you missed it! You can't say you haven't been warned... Once you've read it, this is the book you will want to recommend to your friends! The action in the book is split between Scotland and India, so if you are in India, and like crime thrillers, this is the one to read!

Eagle's Claw


Morgan Jameson - 2017
    But the Gestapo needs a man-hunter to apprehend an Allied agent who has killed three men, and worse, absconded with Top Secret Luftwaffe documents which detail a secret plan that could alter the course of the war. The Reich cannot let the information, and the man who stole it, make it back to Allied territory. The deal? Catch the killer and the Gestapo will free his family from the death camp where they are jailed. Fail...

The Emigrant's Song


Gina Hooten Popp - 2016
    But she doesn’t care. She has the voice of an angel and the looks of a siren and she intends to make the most of her talents. So when two American entrepreneurs come to Ireland scouting singing talent to record on their new phonograph discs, she sets her sights on returning with them to America. But first she must convince her longtime beau John McLaren that this is a good idea for both of them knowing that they might never see their homeland or their families again.

Murder at Whalehead (Outer Banks Murder Series)


Joe Ellis - 2012
    On the northern Outer Banks looms an old hunting lodge known as the Whalehead Club. During the roaring twenties Edward and Marie Knight entertained guests at this isolated Mansion by the Sea. Now it has become one of North Carolina's most popular tourist attractions. Less than a quarter mile away deep in the marsh along the Currituck Sound lies the body of a young woman. Someone has killed and craves to kill again. In his new novel, Murder at Whalehead, Joe C. Ellis tells the story of two Ohio families vacationing on the Outer Banks. They look forward to sun, sea, rest, and relaxation. Instead, they cross paths with a homicidal maniac. Can they stop him before another innocent victim dies? "Murder at Whalehead will absorb the reader from its first tantalizing page to its last satisfying conclusion." Michele Rubin, senior agent, Writers House, New York

ARMOR #1, The Battle of North Africa: a Novel of Tank Warfare


Craig DiLouie - 2020
    Instead, they land in French North Africa to fight the German Army for the first time. In the midst of the invasion, an M4 Sherman tank rolls into combat. It is manned by five men: John Austin, the commander; Anthony Russo, the driver; Charles Wade, the gunner; Amos Swanson, the loader; and Eugene Clay, the bow gunner. Cocky and confident in Allied victory, they expect the battle for North Africa to be a cakewalk. Soon, the Germans will teach them the harsh realities of armored warfare. To survive, they’ll have to show grit—and learn to work together.

A Death of Innocence


David Penny - 2020
    Together they uncover a web of deceit and lies to reveal the sad truth behind the murder.Meanwhile, another kind of death has come to Lemster—one that cannot be solved by reason alone.A Death of Innocence is the first of three prequels relating the story of how Thomas Berrington leaves England to begin his travels to Moorish al-Andalus.

The Dressmaker's Son


Abbi Sherman Schaefer - 2013
    Rachael's family comes to America to start a new life after fleeing the pogroms in Russia. Rebekah comes to America with her son, Samuel, fleeing his father, Misha, a Russian soldier with whom she had an affair and has threatened to take him away from her so he will not grow up as a Jew and the son of a cobbler. Set in the Lower East Side of New York and pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, Russia, both women adjust to life in America until Misha kidnaps Samuel and returns with him to Russia. How Rebekah rises to the challenge of earning enough money as a designer of women's gowns to return to St. Petersburg to find her son, and the difficulties she encounters while there, including murder and prison, show the reader the full extent of a mother's ingenuity and determination when it comes to her child. Rachael also faces the possibility of losing a child to war when her son Solomon enlists in the army as America's entry into World War I approaches.

A Certain Threat


Roger Burnage - 2012
    Grahame in this work. Merriman is plunged headlong into the world of espionage and when Grahame is seriously wounded it falls to Merriman to carry on the investigation.Young James Merriman must keep all his wits about him to foil these plans especially when his adversary is revealed to be an exceptional French agent Henri Moreau who hopes that by helping the Irish to throw off the English yoke, France will be able to use Irish ports from which to attack England.

On the Edge of Darkness


Anthony Molloy - 2011
    He orders the new unit, to carry out clandestine missions along the enemy coast. Soon Barr’s small force evolves into an elite fighting unit, codenamed ‘Orca’, with its far reaching remit to harass the enemy held coast of Norway, it soon becomes a thorn in the side of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Family of Strangers


Barbara Willis - 2013
     It is the dawn of the Second World War, but for the residents of Fielding life carries on in its simple way. Yet paranoia and suspicion cast a pall over Eva’s world when her dearest friend simply vanishes, and no one claims to have known her at all. Beginning to doubt her own sanity but desperate to find Annie, Eva makes the acquaintance of two mysterious strangers: the elderly and eccentric Lola, and tender but distant Gabe. Showing no surprise at Eva’s tale, the two open her eyes to a hidden world — one in which people can be lost and all memory of them forsaken. Gabe and Lola vow to assist Eva in her quest, but she soon begins to suspect they may be guarding secrets of their own.

Hunting Aquila


James Hume - 2017
    Porritt has no leads until Jane, a young British translator, unwittingly gets caught up with a German spy trying to flee the country. Can Porritt use his Special Branch teams in Glasgow, Yorkshire, London and Belfast to rescue Jane and smash the undercover spy organisation before Churchill’s invasion plans get leaked? This deftly plotted, action-packed spy thriller is full of twists and turns. Carefully weaving fact and fiction, it provides powerful and intriguing lessons that still apply in today’s changing world.

Blood Trail (Fannin County, Texas)


G.H. Lambert - 2014
    Dylan Ryan arrives in Texas just as the Runaway Scrape is in full swing and the Battle at San Jacinto nears. He misses going to war when he comes to the aid of Mort Lems, severely wounded by outlaws who seek information on the location of an old trail used by the Spaniards to transport gold bullion from Texas to New Orleans. It is said gold bars are still buried along that trail. Dylan and Mort escape to the prairie of North Texas and the safety of the Red River Wilderness. But instead of having the land to themselves, they discover peaceful settlements springing up around trading posts all along the river. Peace is fleeting, as Indians grow angry at the homesteaders breaking the soil with their plows on land that was promised to them for hunting grounds. The newly organized Republic of Texas is unable to provide the settlements protection, so it is the trading post owners who hire gunmen to act as ranger forces to repel the hostiles. A new war has begun, this time with an unpredictable enemy. Dylan, Mort and the settlers watch their dreams for a new beginning end as clouds of dark smoke rise into the clear blue sky as homesteads burn. Indians begin to raid every community, burning, stealing horses and taking women and children as slaves. Overnight the promise of a better life in Texas has been replaced with one of a living hell. Blood Trail is the first in a series.

The Texicans


Jinx Schwartz - 2005
    Decades before Crockett, Bowie or Houston even set foot in Texas, Frederick Stockman was already there. Author Elizabeth Schwartz, a ninth-generation Texan, has delved deep into her ancestral roots to create this moving story of the Frederick Stockman familys' courageous determination to make Texas their home during the turbulent period between 1806 and 1836. The Texicans was inspired by a Texas history book calling her ancestral clan a "congenial society for evil"--rogues "skilled in many forms of villainy" for their role in the tumultuous years of first Spanish, the Mexican rule. Frederick Stockman and his family immigrate to Spanish Texas in 1806 to ranch, but soon find themselves inexorably drawn into the bitter conflict between Mexico and Spain. They join forces with a dashing young Spanish deserter, Miguel Gonzales, in his successful campaign to liberate Mexico and Texas from Spanish rule. Their ties are further cemented when Gonzales marries into the family. As Heroes of Mexico, the Texicans--staunch supporters of Mexican rule for Texas--find themselves vilified by North American settlers illegally flocking across the unprotected border. These newcomers, calling themselves Texians, view Mexico, Mexicans and Texicans as the enemy. Targets of bigotry, the Texicans themselves are torn along cultural lines as their hero-turned-despot, General Santa Anna, propels them towards a deadly showdown.

The Ice Maiden (Detective Inspector Jack Gilbert)


Michael Saunders - 2018
    Simply waiting for a bus why should Anne ever dream of dying? He was an opportunist driven by lust, needing to climax while looking into her eyes as she died. Found two months later she will be like all the others - frozen in time. Hunting the killer down is Detective Inspector Jack Gilbert, a dinosaur of the old school, a fish out of water in the swinging sixties, but with a reputation second to none. What is Jack’s sad secret? What does the future hold for him? Read the ICE MAIDEN and there’s a link at the end allowing you to download for FREE, number one in the Jack Gilbert Series – THE CHOCOLATE KILLER. For you, chocolate will never taste the same again!