These aging giants, calling themselves the ‘freakin’ old guys’ are hard-working leaders in their respective fields and have a menagerie of skills to show for it. But what starts out as a dream quickly turns into a nightmare.With these guys, the action never stops.While preparing to set sail, they have a run in with a teenage troublemaker that plagues the locals. The son of a senator, Sean has no respect for authority and is a little lost. The FOGs come from an era where a little rough handling never hurt anyone, and so strike a deal with Sean’s mother to have him sail along with them. She agrees, hoping that two weeks of hard work alongside six respected, intelligent men will get Sean turned around. Things quickly take a turn for the worst when the six small boats get caught in the crossfire of a mafia drug deal. It soon becomes clear that some of the group’s members may be hiding secrets and past lives from the others… Suddenly, the six boats are caught in an odd fog bank, and when they come out the other side, things are not as they seem. Their radios and compasses no longer work and time seems to have lost its way. Where are they? Things quickly start to defy the accepted order of things. Suddenly dropped into their own Odyssey, they fight against strange creatures and demi-goddesses as they try to find a way back home. Together, they must navigate this strange new land. Caly’s Island is a rip-roaring pseudo-fantasy thriller of a modern quest to conquer the unknown amongst seas of turmoil. Dick Herman retired from the US Air Force in 1983 with the rank of Major after serving for twenty- one years. He has flown over 200 combat missions himself and was stationed in Vietnam, West Germany and Great Britain. He has flown the F-4 and C-130 and received five medals, including the Bronze Star. He and his English-born wife now live in Fair Oaks, California. He is the author of several aviation thrillers from Endeavour Press.Venture Press is a science fiction and fantasy imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK’s leading independent digital publisher. We are committed to the discovery and rediscovery of immensely talented authors in the SFF genre, and continue to push boundaries in search of great literature. Join us as we venture across universes and unknown landscapes – past, present and future. Sign up to our newsletter: http://bit.ly/1LUVI4n Follow us on Twitter @venture_pressFacebook: http://on.fb.me/1NnFow7

    military is shrinking, our leaders are turning to high technology as a force equalizer. America has not had a new hand-held rifle since the M16 was introduced in the 1960s. Now there's a new gun ready to take its position as the NATO standard. A gun so sophisticated, so fast, so unbelievably accurate, it will turn the average shooter into an expert marksman almost instantly. The problem is, it was developed by a German company with no U.S. production contract.That's where Warfield Arms, a Denver gun company, enters the action. Warfield hires Chad Hunter, a private weapons designer who had worked for the German company, to go to Germany to convince the company that Warfield is the perfect partner. To sweeten the deal, Hunter must first convince Frank Baldwin, a struggling optics engineer from Wyoming, who has developed the most advanced rifle scope ever conceived, that his scope would be the perfect match for this new German rifle. With the scope as bait, the Germans would surely deal.What Hunter and Baldwin find in Germany during the middle of the Oktoberfest celebration, could just get them both killed. Other countries and private factions would like this new weapon, and some in Germany want it only for that country. There's murder, kidnapping, extortion, and shoot-outs.... Who said the end of the Cold War wouldn't be any fun?

    The victims' bodies are missing and the police have no clue as to their identities or who killed them.As the investigation snowballs, the potential body count rises and the Major Investigation Team have little to go on until DNA evidence is examined.There appears to be no motive for the dreadful murders until an ancient script is found daubed on the walls of a nearby property. As the clues are unravelled, Braddick and his team realise they are dealing with something they have never faced before. Because this time they're tracking evil itself… Deliver us from Evil is a fast-paced crime thriller full of breathless action. It can be read as book 4 in the international bestselling DI Braddick series or as a truly unmissable stand-alone thriller.

    Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan.

    Only Breed can destroy it.Late in 1974, six Green Berets were sent into China on a desperate mission. They were called the Black Sheep. Compromised, the mission failed. The men fled through a bat cave and barely escaped with their lives.Fifty years later, assassins are killing the Black Sheep one by one. Their leader, Sam Crockett, was a close friend of Breed's father. When Crockett goes missing, Breed sets out to find the vet, and thwart the assassins sent to kill him.Breed finds Crockett and learns the horrifying secret of the bat cave. Anya Stein, of the CIA, sends Breed on a mission tailor-made for a man of his lethal qualifications. The only problem—it could be his last.Target Deck—Book Three in the stunning Breed action thriller series. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Jason Kasper, and Jack Carr.

    He had violent hallucinations based on the Iraq war and the reports of terrorism and violence constantly playing on his hospital TV tuned into CNN. He believed his family to be in danger, but he had no way to communicate with them. For a long time after the whole ordeal, he had trouble knowing what had happened. What was real and what wasn't. If part of the core of who we are is our memory, what does it mean when the memory is still there, but false?

    

    7/7/2005: Ben Morgan, a cybersecurity specialist with the Metropolitan police, starts another day at work. It will be the last normal day he ever has.The Present: In Hong Kong, a crime overlord is offered a deal by shadowy agents from Beijing: his life for a new kind of operation in London. Morgan, now a part of an off the books cyber-terrorism prevention unit, must do everything to stop its spread.This is a new kind of war: different goals, tactics, rules, stakes. And Morgan is caught right in the centre... A pulse-pounding thriller rooted in reality, perfect for fans of Frederick Forsyth, Andy McNab and James Deegan.

    Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting.An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies. Tony is diverted from Casablanca on a brief classified fact-finding mission to a neutral country's island. That mission gets complicated and ultimately results in spy catching and another death. Returning to Casablanca, events result in Tony meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.Between "Casablanca's" covers are communications intelligence, counter-intelligence, military politics, diplomatic tension, WWII history, family dynamics, and in the final analysis, a very exciting, twisting and fast moving story.

    Early in his career, he came up against the Soviet Union's deadliest agent three times, finally killing the man in a flooded tunnel beneath the ruins of a castle in Portugal.Years have passed. The Russian's brother, Kurshin, a Spetsnaz operator twenty-five years younger than McGarvey, vows revenge. He and McGarvey are both shadowmen--living between the real world, and the world of the deep cover spy and assassin. To get McGarvey's attention, Kurshin desecrates the grave of the American's wife. McGarvey pits himself against the Russian--the man of vast experience versus the bold young man who believes he is invincible. The mano a mano begins at Arlington Cemetery and moves across Europe, from the baccarat tables of Monte Carlo to the same the Portuguese castle where the Russian's brother was killed so many years ago. Only one shadowman will be left standing.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    The identities of several Russian agents become known to the West.The chase is on to gather the evidence needed to incriminate them.One of the leaders of the hunt is the brilliant British spycatcher Joe Shapiro, who persuades the Americans into exchanging a notorious and high-ranking KGB spy for the seemingly unimportant American spy-pilot Gary Powers.Joe Shapiro has more than a professional interest in the case, and the intricate web of lies and deception behind the exchange of spies hides secrets that must never be revealed.Inspired by historical events surrounding the infamous 1960 U-2 incident, THE CROSSING is a tense and compelling thriller by one of the genre's master storytellers.

    I also wanted to deal with something I've kept at arm's length--Muslim extremism. Add to this Somali pirates, self-loathing Western agents, and a disastrous stop-over in Rome before heading on to Nairobi, and you have...well, you have the makings for some explosions.I hope you enjoy it. If you do, then of course don't resist the impulse to run out and purchase my back catalog, but I'd also suggest picking up a copy of Agents of Treachery--it's an excellent collection for any fan of spy fiction. For fans of the genre, I'd call it required reading.

    Returning to the Paris hotel where he spent his honeymoon six years earlier, he decides to take what seems like the only way out - suicide. But a chance encounter with a Russian in a similar predicament leaves Nick with an unlikely obligation to fulfil, one that will take him to Italy, and offer him a chance at something like redemption. www.kevinwignall.com

    Stacey Tanner flees a stalking psychopathic ex-boyfriend and confronts all of her worst fears in one fateful evening.

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust