And it does, as they enjoy trading thebustle of their Shanghai life behind for the idyllic tropical paradise.But while on a diving excursion, they're taken hostage by a group ofterrorists, who take them to a remote island and hold them there forransom. The longer that time drags on, though, the more doubts Marahbegins to have about their captors' true motivations.

    She has taken a North Texas quarter horse racer and liquor baron named Archie Carpin--the last of a dynasty of criminals from the 1920's--for a ride and cleaned him out of a neat two million bucks. And thus begins the adventure of Bill’s life.Ensues a chase north across Texas to recover the money and shake the pursuit of a couple of rednecks with a penchant for rifles and rigged explosives. Yet, through all this action the compelling tale of yet another mystery—an 80-year old missing person’s case—begins to unravel.

    You can't read just one, they're like chocolates! DEATH TURNS A TRICKA rollicking tale of murder, romance, and bordellos…Rebecca Schwartz, nice Jewish lawyer with a few too many fantasies, is happily playing the piano in a whorehouse when she suddenly finds herself assigned to make sure a near-naked state senator escapes a police raid. That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of Course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor? Fans of Janet Evanovich, Joan Hess, and Elizabeth Peters will get a kick out of this one.THE SOURDOUGH WARSTO YOU, IT’S JUST A FROZEN LUMP OF DOUGH; BUT TO SOME, IT’S LIFE AND DEATH…Especially to handsome Peter Martinelli, who wants to auction off the fabled sourdough starter from his family’s famous bakery. But who’d buy a frozen hunk of flour and water? Only, it turns out, every bakery in San Francisco, a national food conglomerate, and an upstart ringer with a mysterious backer.Someone would even kill for it. And does.A tasty treat of a San Francisco mystery. A crisp, tangy story you’re sure to get a rise out of. You won’t find it a bit crumb-y. TOURIST TRAPFear stalks the streets! reports the San Francisco Chronicle. It also stalks these pages, and so do a lot of laughs.You just know the Easter sunrise service is going to be a bummer when the San Francisco fog lifts to reveal a body nailed to a landmark cross. Next: mass shellfish poisoning at Pier 39. A very different kind of serial killer is operating here—one who seems to have a grudge against the whole city.And this is a very different kind of serial killer tale—a funny one. Well, actually, what serial killer’s funny? But lawyer sleuth Rebecca Schwartz is warm and witty, never takes herself too seriously, and on one occasion offers closing testimony with green hair.DEAD IN THE WATERTHAR SHE FLOATS! Deader than flotsam, right in the thirty-foot kelp tower at the Monterey Aquarium.She’s the aquarium director herself, beloved by all except Marty Whitehead, lawyer Rebecca Schwartz’s weekend hostess, now cooling her heels in the county clink.

    He accepts his true nature. He's a killer, and his passion needs to be sated. He begins to plan future murders, but discovers that someone out there is on his trail, digging up old, forgotten clues and interviewing people involved with the crime that police had all but forgotten. In order to continue with his new spree, the killer will have to eliminate the detective who's begun asking the right questions.Lincoln Pierce is an amateur private detective who took on a case that was close to his daughter's heart. Ten years ago, two of her school friends disappeared on their way home. The brother of one of the victims was charged with murder, but a lot of people believe he was falsely accused, including Lincoln's daughter. As Lincoln and his daughter work together to dig into the cold case, it becomes clear that there's more going on than they ever anticipated. Lincoln will discover that the real killer's still on the loose, and his next victim could be close to home.

     The series opener, SHE’S NOT THERE, introduces TJ Peacock, a Milwaukee-based PI, a former cop struggling to make it in her own business. Her life intersects with that of Lisa Rayburn, a clinical psychologist who has just found evidence that abused women are going missing in the Milwaukee area. When the police inform Lisa that without hard evidence, they cannot open an investigation, she joins TJ on a mission to reveal foul play at work in the disappearances. TJ and Lisa put their lives on the line as they attempt to unearth a devious serial killer. In the next two books of the series, TRESPASS and GIRL UNDONE, TJ and Lisa maintain their friendship and use their skills to uncover a cold case from the past and a deadly plot by a serial killer against a crime blogger.

    Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.As Sondra struggles to uncover what happened to Tracy, she’s launched into a tangled web of deceit and danger that put her on a collision course with life and death…

    It is the one place where she had always felt safe and loved. Devasted and lost, Rachael longs for the simplicity of her childhood. But Jenny’s Cove has changed. From the moment of Rachael’s arrival, a man watches. He has already killed, and mercilessly will do so again. Soon Rachael becomes a target for a vicious predator whose own dark and twisted past forms a deadly bond between them. And sets her on a collision course with a crazed killer. "...Joan Hall Hovey is a female Stephen King... a stunning, multi-layered, modern-day gothic, told with the unforgettable style and grace of a true master of suspense..." Rendezvous Magazine * * * Bloody Dagger Award Winner MIDWEST REVIEW by Cynthia Penn Chill Waters Joan Hall Hovey Evil stalks the unsuspecting --Recommended. Memories of idyllic summers spent with her grandmother motivate Rachael to buy the house in Jenny's Cove. Tired of the arguments and silences, she had tried to breath fire back into the dying embers of her marriage, only to discover her husband warming someone else's bed. Now at age forty-five and in the process of a divorce, Rachael longs for the simplicity of her childhood. Iris Brandt recognizes the arrival of evil, chilled by the malevolent energy that follows Rachael. The practical, no nonsense proprietress of local gas station feels compelled to warn her. Indeed, Iris would be correct, because from the moment of Rachael's arrival, a man watches. He has already killed, and mercilessly will do so again. And his stalking of Rachael has only just begun. Author Joan Hovey creates a taut thriller in CHILL WATERS. Woven with an uncanny magic, CHILL WATERS is rich in sensory imagery and dense with the darkness that lies in the heart of a madman. Hovey creates a rich cast of characters, each uniquely realized and memorable. At age forty-five, heroine Rachael provides a refreshingly mature viewpoint who still manages to grow and change with the flow of the novel. She has raised her children and fled a failed marriage to take control of her life only to confront a madman. With believable vulnerabilities

    A no-holds-barred, breakneck-paced thriller, Night charts the early years of El Rey - known as the King of Swords - a super-assassin responsible for some of the world's most spectacular and daring executions.Framed against the backdrop of present-day Mexico's brutal narco-trafficking violence, Night of the Assassin chronicles the making of a monster - a cold-blooded, ruthless killing machine. Raw, disturbing, edgy and unflinching, this epic saga defies convention to create a roller-coaster of intrigue, suspense and thrills that will leave even the most jaded thriller aficionados gasping for breath.Best if read after King of Swords, Night was written to provide background on El Rey, with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the events in King of Swords.

    Now she must risk everything, including exposure of dangerous secrets, to prevent a ruthless politician from destroying all she holds dear. JOY AND ANGERUp-and-coming director Julie Bullard must get to the bottom of the sabotage at her movie's location in the Louisiana wetlands -- even if it means enlisting the aid of the handsome and mysterious Cajun known as the Swamp Rat.HOLDING THE TIGRESSJessica is haunted by the reckless passion she shared with a masked stranger while in Rio at Carnaval. Now, she could be vulnerable to blackmail during the takeover threat against the shipping empire she controls. As violence looms over the crisis, she must turn to the man she trusts least, the Brazilian owner of the rival shipping company -- who may be her mysterious midnight lover.

    All he has to do is accompany female pop star Max Magic to Los Angeles and deliver her to the FBI. But when their routine flight ends in a hail of gunfire at LAX, Walker has no choice but to take the frightened diva on the run.After a second attack leaves him battered and bloody, Walker realizes he cannot trust the FBI. To keep his client alive, he must use a patchwork of trusted aviation contacts to get her home to Austin, where the key suspects await.But as they race to stay one step ahead of their deadly pursuers, the biggest danger of all may be what they’re heading toward—the dark secrets that Max herself has been keeping…

    Three adventurous, irresistible women who don't mind teaching them. Add a secret FBI mission and a corrupt politician who wants them all dead, and watch the fireworks erupt. (Or is that gunfire?) A team that fights together sleeps together? Well, not ALL together. (But—okay, fine—love IS in the air.) (Seriously, these guys are hotter than a fire on a submarine.) "Action packed and breathtakingly romantic!" Susan Mallery #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author "...started with a bang and the tension never let up..." Paula Graves bestselling author

    This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people. Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government. Linda doesn’t date local men. When her celibacy grows intolerable, she visits nearby towns to frequent the watering holes of successful men. Her motto: No relationships. No second dates. No use of her real name during one-night stands. Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed.

    A Marine in name only, Jack is on-loan to the CIA. Normally an integral part of the team, he finds that he is nothing more than a security detail in Iraq. Jack and his partner Bear have a run-in with four CIA special agents over the treatment of an Iraqi family. Within hours Jack and Bear are detained. All Jack wanted was to finish his enlistment and move on with his life. All he did was intervene and save a family from unwarranted violence at the hands of four CIA agents. But he soon discovers that he did far more than intervene. He has placed himself dead square in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the U.S. government. This Jack Noble political thriller is not for the faint of heart! A DEADLY DISTANCE (JACK NOBLE #2) - Washington, D.C. Midday. A man waits at a bus stop, his intentions unknown. Two government operatives have been stalking him for days, waiting for him to make his move. Unexpectedly, the man takes off running and heads for a deserted warehouse. Jack Noble and his partner, Frank Skinner, believe the man to be part of a terrorist organization that is involved in smuggling drugs and guns and men into the country. But it turns out their plan involves far more export than import, and hits a lot closer to home. As the case in this explosive action thriller unfolds, the man behind it all reaches out to Jack with a simple message... 37 hours.

    Highlighting the beginning of his career, this collection features Marc’s involvement with an accused serial killer, the family of an influential (and irresistible) socialite, and the young mother of a missing toddler caught up in a media circus. Chock-full of grit and street savvy, this action-packed legal thriller series is a Grisham fan’s dream. (And we dare you not to fall in love with Marc’s best friend, badass private investigator Maddy Rivers). We guarantee you’ll tear right through these first 3 novels, now bundled in a page-turning box set.BOOK ONE – THE KEY TO JUSTICEFinancially embarrassed, getting a divorce, living in a shabby apartment, and distinctly short of clients, Marc Kadella’s beginning to question why he ever went into the law when a friend brings him the case all Minneapolis is watching--defending an accused serial killer. If he wins, it could turn his life around— if he blows it, he better go into sales.It's a classic David-and Goliath setup, and the author’s got some pretty fancy twists in store as Kadella unravels a complicated plot to set his client up, and Maddy battles demons that just keep coming at her. Fans of John Grisham, Richard North Patterson, and of course the most beloved lawyer sleuth of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, will gobble up this one and go back for the rest of the series.BOOK TWO – DESPERATE JUSTICEAfter winning the case of a lifetime, Minneapolis criminal defense lawyer Marc Kadella welcomes the new energy his career is receiving. Another lawyer asks him to represent the co-defendant in a murder trial resulting from a petty crime that spiraled out of control—the somewhat “accidental” murder of the nephew of Vivian Corwin, grande dame of the influential Corwin family. Disarmingly charming and still downright sexy at sixty-eight, there’s more to Vivian than meets the eye. You just gotta love a society doyenne who can toss off, “… if I wasn’t a lady, right about now I would say: f--- you.”Marc has no illusions about why he’s being brought into the case, or what will happen. What he doesn’t know is that he’s gotten on the wrong side of a crooked judge; he just knows the guy hates him and will do everything he can to make life miserable for Marc and his client.BOOK THREE – MEDIA JUSTICEAn adorable—and photogenic—two-year-old girl is kidnapped, and, when her remains are found, her twenty-two-year-old widowed mother Brittany is arrested for her murder. But before she can even be charged, she’s been tried and convicted by the media., at the center of which is Melinda Pace, a cynical, mostly-functioning alcoholic Minneapolis television personality with a “legal news” show called The Court Reporter. Not even in the alternative universe of television news could she be described as a reporter, since she makes no attempt at or pretense of presenting the truth, or even the facts. She does do a great job of producing through-the-roof ratings and whipping the public into a frenzy—with tragic consequences.

    At twenty-seven, Marissa’s moved beyond the trauma and is working under a new name as a freelance photographer. But when she accepts a job covering a string of macabre murders in Portland, it’s impossible for Marissa not to remember.Everything is eerily familiar. The same underground lairs. Sad trinkets and toys left behind, identical to those Marissa had as a child. And then there is the note meant just for her that freezes Marissa’s blood: See you soon, Missy.To determine the killer’s next move, Marissa must retrieve her long-forgotten memories and return to a past she’s hidden away. But she won’t be facing her fears alone. Someone is waiting for her in the dark.