Book picks similar to
Candleburn by Jack Hayes


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Apache Country


Christopher Kenworthy - 2013
    The worst that might happen is the Indians come after his scalp. But when he runs into the beautiful Rosemary, he finds himself pitted against ruthless enemies of every kind.Kidnappers, comancheros, and renegade Apaches are on his trail - and after his blood. But most implacable of all, there is the Sonoran Desert itself, where everything that grows either bites, stings or scratches.Murphy needs all his skill with a gun if he is to survive.

Fava


John Hazen - 2014
    Francine is a rising TV news reporter in New York City. Despite her brains, beauty and a growing following, she is stuck covering local interest stories. That is until her career literally hits the jackpot when the winner of a $450 million dollar lottery tells Francine that he is committed to using his new fortune to avenge his brother's killing at the Pentagon on 9/11. His seemingly crazy plan is backed by more than just money-he is in league with a ruthless and powerful Army Colonel gone rogue, religious extremists and co-conspirators in the highest levels of government. Francine teams with FBI Special Agent Will Allen, one of the few people who believe the threat is real, in a desperate race across three continents to stop the plot before it's too late.

ALPHA


Steven Konkoly - 2014
    Blackmailed into executing one final mission for his previous commanding officer, Daniel's carefully constructed "life" rapidly disintegrates into a relentless federal manhunt-- and a "24-style" race against the clock to suppress the shocking truth about his past. To survive, he'll release the darkest side of his concealed identity. A dark side with few boundaries--and even fewer loyalties. Black Flagged lays the foundation for a gritty, high-octane series exploring the serpentine link between covert operations and government agency politics.

Fallen Out


Wayne Stinnett - 2014
    At 37, his greatest skill is killing people from up to a mile away. He knows there aren’t many job opportunities in the civilian world for that. However, he knows the south Florida waters, is an experienced diver, loves to fish, and knows his way around a boat. A waitress in a waterfront restaurant in north Key Largo gives him an idea and he runs with it. An old friend helps get him set up as a charter fishing and dive boat Captain and a new friend helps him buy just the right boat. Danger lurks in the sleepy little town of Marathon, in the middle of the Florida Keys, as well as in the swamps of the Everglades. But danger doesn’t expect to run into a man like Jesse, who will not only respond swiftly, but with a vengeance unexpected.

The Grave Man


David Archer - 2015
     Sam Prichard was a cop, and a good one, until the bullets took out the joint of his right hip. Now he's trying to learn to live without being a cop, and getting to know his neighbors, learning to walk again and even ride a motorcycle. Life is bearable, barely, but then he gets asked to find a missing child, and the lure of getting back into some kind of police work is too much for him to resist. When he teams up with computer whiz Indiana Perkins, he suddenly becomes one of the best investigators he's ever even known. Now, he's found the missing child, but it's thrown him right into the middle of something that may be a drug war--or could be a chance to stop the next 911! There's no way out for Sam, so he's in for the ride of his life, but when the girl he's becoming fond of is suddenly drawn into the line of fire with her own little daughter, Sam is ready to forget all the rules and do whatever is necessary to win the day.

The Inner Circle


Kevin George - 2011
    Siberia... A tiny comet rips through Earth's atmosphere and explodes above the Tunguska region of Siberia, instantly engulfing thousands of square acres of the mostly desolate region. The explosion is heard for hundreds of miles, the light of the comet seen halfway across the globe. Had the comet hit a few hours earlier in a more populated area, millions would have been killed...A century later, another comet - this one hundreds of times bigger and more powerful - encounters a black hole in deep space and is pushed onto a new, deadly course leading straight to Earth...A small group of humans - including the President of the United States, a former astronaut and a middle school science teacher - discovers the existence of this potentially deadly comet and keep its existence hidden from the rest of the world. Although the group - which calls itself the Inner Circle - has twelve years to deal with the problem, they will need every second of that time. Not only must they figure out a way to avert this crisis, they must also start to make plans in case they can't avoid a catastrophe that could annihilate humankind...The Inner Circle is the first book of the 12-part Comet Clement series. Please enjoy and if you like it, keep an eye out for books 2 and 3, which will be available in one download...

Shell Shock (Gus Conrad )


Steve Stahl - 2015
    Gus Conrad is called to consult by the U.S. army for its growing epidemic of suicides and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) among soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, his problems begin.Accused of murdering one of his own patients, a soldier with PTSD, Conrad learns from the mother that the answer to who is the real killer resides in England, where her family holds a long-hidden secret.Now Conrad must find the real killer as he slips out of the country to uncover to his horror the practice over the past century of British and U.S. armies both secretly killing their own soldiers who claimed psychological problems following combat, deeming them cowards, making their deaths look like suicides.The current head of the American death squad has apparently killed Conrad’s patient, and is now targeting Conrad himself for death.  Following the clues in England, Conrad is shocked at what he discovers. Will Conrad and Warburton be able get back to the U.S. to expose the practice of armies killing their own soldiers they deem cowards? Can they stop the rogue leader of the American death squad before they themselves are killed?

Smokescreen


Tom Meitner - 2016
    Now, he's out of prison and back to work... as a homicide detective. But while he tries to make the transition from convict to cop again, he can't stop thinking about how he wound up in jail in the first place - because he thinks it was no accident. He has no idea how deep it goes. In this new vigilante series from debut author Tom Meitner, watch Charlie solve murders while he unlocks the gripping mystery of who set him up... and why. This pilot episode is a free murder mystery and suspense story that introduces you to the main players and lays the groundwork for the conspiracy that follows Charlie in his new, "normal" life.

Croaker: Kill Me Again


Paul Bishop - 1994
    Now, because of a streak of unsolved murders, she feels extra pressure to solve the murder of a mysterious woman who had multiple IDs in different names, a million dollars in cash, and only new clothing and furniture in her equally new condo at the time of her death. Fingerprints inexplicably reveal the woman had already been murdered – 18 years earlier in San Francisco. Despite this twist, the case appears to be open and shut – the woman's ex-husband, convicted of killing her the first time, was released on parole weeks before her second murder. However, the victim has many more surprises for everyone involved – especially for Fey, who finds herself becoming one of the suspects when her investigation takes a turn for the deadly.

Rules


Dustin Stevens - 2021
    Rules for the rest of us to follow.”Retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Detective Solomon Hill hasn’t heard the name in years. A man he hasn’t thought about since sending him away more than two decades prior for attempted murder. One of the biggest arrests of his entire career, a person the the world is better off without.Or so it was for the last twenty-one years in the time prior to his sudden inclusion on a list of governor’s pardons. A free pass undoing all that occurred, releasing a man with a short fuse and a long list of people he holds responsible for what happened.People that Hill still feels responsible for, even if his current physical condition will no longer allow him to make good on it.Low on time and options, Hill does the only think he can think of, calling in an old marker—a favor owed from his early days on the force, extended from one of the last vestiges of the original Las Vegas. Someone accustomed to handling issues in a way Hill isn’t accustomed to.Three hundred miles to the south, Ham muddles her way through the final months of a slow winter. Endless hours spent training for an unknown opponent, each day without the phone ringing heightening her desire for action. The need to be moving again, unable to feel fully alive without the adrenaline of the job after years spent relegated to the sidelines.A craving that sends her hurtling up out of the desert the instant she hears what happened in Las Vegas...Right into a head-on collision with a deadly opponent.