Peacock’s wife thinks he did it, the police think he did it, even Frank McAlpine said he did it, moments before he died. But Peacock knows he’s innocent, and he knows he’s going to work out who really killed Frank to clear his name. But commiting crimes are more in Peacock’s line of work, he doesn’t have the first clue about how to solve one. Luckily, though, he knows a man who does, a man who owes him a favour. A second Scottish noir writer, Ian Rankin, has featured Peacock as the main villain in one of his bestselling Rebus novels- A Question of Blood. And Peacock feels he was somewhat misrepresented, made out to be much more of a hardened criminal than he actually is. He’d been planning to seek compensation from Rankin, on a massive scale, but now he sees an opportunity for Ian to make things good. If Rankin can use his detective skills to work out who actually killed Frank McAlpine then Peacock is willing to drop the action for libel. The only questions are, will Rankin agree. And is he up to the job.

    A million pounds, perhaps five million, even ten million. How wonderful! Emma Carter buys a ticket for the lottery every week, and puts the ticket carefully in her bag. She is seventy-three years old and does not have much money. She would like to visit her son in Australia, but aeroplane tickets are very expensive. Jason Williams buys lottery tickets every week too. But he is not a very nice young man. He steals things. He hits old ladies in the street, snatches their bags and runs away . . .

    She might be the only one. When Mercy’s best friend, Ellen, shows up in the middle of the night, shaken and afraid. Mercy starts digging for a truth that might not even exist. Is it a mental illness or has the Missouri drought revealed something that could’ve remained hidden forever?

    I had a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. The ad was the answer to my problem. Someone needed a party hostess for 24 hours on a private island. With my catering experience and model looks, I could get the gig. But when I set eyes on the man about to fly me to the island, I realized I might have made a mistake. The tall, older, arrogant stranger didn’t just undress me with his eyes, he used me right there on the pavement. Deviant desires seemed to radiate from him. He pulled a black leather dog collar out of his pocket. “Wait. You have to sign this before we do anything. Read it.” He handed me a contract. The wind swept a bottle down the runway and blew my skirt up. It was hard to read with his dark eyes looking right through my underwear and into my secret places. “This is a mistake. I didn’t know the ad meant —.” “You thought you were going to serve canapes on a tray?” He chuckled. “No, Brittani. You’re the main course.” His eyes worked me over again. “And you’re perfect.” He handed me a pen that probably cost more than my laptop. “Just sign at the bottom of the page. Full disclosure, full consent. That’s the way I do business.” “Can I leave?” “Of course you can leave. If you leave now. But you don’t get paid if you leave. Once we get to the island, you’re ours for 24-hours.” He tapped the contract with his long finger. “When your service is over, I transfer $10,000 to your account and send you home.” “$10,000?” I choked on it. That was more than generous. I scanned the contract again. It had long, dense paragraphs of disclaimers and waivers but not much in the way of details. “I’ll be — okay — when it’s over?” “You’ll be okay.” He smiled. I liked his smile. I needed the money. I signed. He put the collar around my neck and buckled it. If you like dark short erotica, kinky alpha billionaires — and no-entrances-barred hard-and-unprotected group interracial action with a white woman at the center, you'll love Q. Zayne's creamy story about Brittani’s scary-hot visit to The Billionaire’s Club. Click Buy and get the adventure! All characters are 18+ and readers should be, too, due to language and sexual content. If you're over 21, enjoy the dash of interracial BMWW romance sparked amid all the juicy action. :)

    He is, after all, a monster himself. Cursed in his errant past, his body now harbors a blazing fiend of pure, elemental chaos—kept in check by the bonds that smother his own magical abilities.But crime ever turns in the Clockwork City, and none are better suited to investigate those most sinister deeds of inscrutable sorcery than Corradon’s greatest detective magus. With his loyal apprentice, Keldon Veldanor, and a host of street-smart allies, Aldicus will face a crucible of sorcery and villainy with only his wits and the science of forensic alchemy to aid him.Yet, in the decaying depths of the Underworks far below the tick-tock city, there festers an even greater evil—a darkness that threatens not only the unsuspecting denizens of Corradon, but the fate of their entire world.

    Her little cottage has a leaking roof, her car broke down, and she’s managed to lose her favorite hat while walking back home. So far, this trip to England has not been so much the restful country retreat she wanted. So far, it has pretty much sucked. And unfortunately, it’s about to get worse. When she catches attractive neighbor Maddox out in a horrible rainstorm, Jade invites him in out of the cold, only to see scratches on his arms. Maddox is pleasant and polite, but even Jade can see that something is wrong. When she learns the next day that an old lady was murdered in her cottage, Jade has a sinking feeling that she knows who’s to blame. When another body crops up soon after, Jade sets out to find the truth. After all, how much worse could this vacation get? She might as well tramp over the heath and figure out what’s going on. But all this poking about is going to put her squarely in the killer’s sights. And now that they’ve murdered twice, they’re not going to stop until all of their enemies are dead.BONUS FREE story included in this book!

    And while Doctor Varanus has never found tranquility much to her taste, even she cannot deny that the peace and quiet make for a pleasant diversion following the chaos of her recent adventures in London. Having left the horrors of bloodshed and wellness behind her, Varanus has thrown herself headlong into the study of the Shashavani condition, determined to learn the secrets of their undying power.But all is not as it seems in the House of Shashava. As winter snow covers the Shashavani valley and chokes the mountain passes, sinister events are unfolding in the shadows. Whispers of conspiracy echo through the halls. Soon loyalties will be tested and friendships betrayed. Blood will flow. For upon the frozen steppe, an ancient evil stirs and turns its gaze toward the House of Shashava, hungering for power and revenge.As darkness descends, one question remains:Do you serve the Winter King?

    One night, a carload of strangers appears on the Hollands' property, carrying the air of incipient danger underneath a veneer of pleasantries. Weldon finds himself inexplicably drawn to the group of trespassing vagabonds—who, despite being camped out on a hidden riverbank in the middle of nowhere, drive the most expensive automobile that Weldon has ever seen. In the unbearable, rainless heat of a Dust Bowl summer, Weldon will find himself mixed up in an encounter with the infamous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde—an encounter that changes the course of Weldon's life…and history itself. Rich with criminal and social history of the American West and a young boy’s struggle to become a man, “A Dust Bowl Tale of Bonnie and Clyde” is just the beginning of Weldon Holland’s story.

    Who hasn't? Well, I was right there when the spaceships crashed. I saw the lasers, felt the heat of the explosions and the clumps of dirt spank my face. And I saw the aliens. Then came the orb and the tats, and with them, the powers. For a few days afterward, I was on cloud 99. And then it all went downhill. First, I was fighting for the lives of strangers. Then I was fighting for my own. Now, I'm fighting for all of the above, and the lives of everyone I love. TAT is a novel for lovers of aliens, super-powers, and more action than is safe for a non-augmented human. Think you know pretty much what's inside? You don't. Think you can predict what's going to happen? You can't. Think you will be bored? You won't.

    With a business deal about to expire unless her mechanical baker remembers his secret recipe, Mrs Milliard turns to Inspector Ambrose for help. But as Ambrose soon discovers, no one in Mrs Milliard's neighbourhood is ready to talk.Will Inspector Ambrose uncover the truth before Mrs Milliard's midnight deadline? Can he solve a mystery that seems impossible on first inspection? The culprit is closer than it seems, and time is running out.Join Inspector Ambrose and help him solve the mystery of Mrs Milliard's Mech today!

    

     From the files and pen of world renowned true crime writer Alan Hynd (1903 - 1974) comes the final installment of deliciously dark true murder cases of the first half of the 20th Century. These stories, the third of these three short collections, are unified by a single theme: they all involve physicians. And not for the autopsy, but as perpetrators or accused perpetrators. You may never see your family care giver again in the same light. Told in the characteristic wry, anecdotal reportorial style that made Alan Hynd famous in his day (two wartime best sellers in 1943, contributions to The Reader's Digest, Colliers, Coronet, The Saturday Evening Post, True, Liberty, The American Mercury and almost every true detective magazine in print) these tales will have you cringing one minute, laughing the next, and gasping in shock a moment later. Truly, no one could make up classics like these. We meet here the notorious Dr. Cream, a twitchy-eyed psychotic with a yen for prostitutes, a Philadelphia chiropractor whose girlfriend lost her head, and Marcel Petiot, whose patients payed their own way out of this world. Then as a bonus, get to know (from a safe distance) "Lethal Louise," the black widow of California, and Adolf Luetgert of Chicago, whose sausage-making plant was put to extracurricular uses. This is not for the faint of heart. True crime is always farther out there than fiction.

    Swanson "A walk down the dark side with stunning endings that would have been applauded by the great O.Henry." JT"These stories draw you in, seduce you and then hit you like a stun gun." L.A. MitchellKILLING CHARLIE: An abusive, ex-husband has killed a woman's fiancé and threatens to kill her as well. She can run and hide, seek out a protector, or she can decide on the murder option.KILLING FREDDIE: A former friend surfaces with a video taken at a wild college party that two men have tried to forget about. The friend demands cash or he'll go public with the video which will certainly send them to prison. Scared over the consequences, the two men plot a murder but sometimes murder doesn't follow a preconceived plan.KILLING HARRY: When a sociopath has gotten away with kidnapping, torturing and killing a young girl, a distraught mother seeks justice the one way she knows she can succeed.

    Millions of citizens have been thrust into the unknown, breeding fear into the minds and souls of those seeking to survive. Wren Burton, an architect from Chicago, has been engulfed by the chaotic aftermath of an EMP blast. Her family is injured. The enemy is unknown. And help is nowhere to be found. Exiled How far will a mother go to protect her family? Limited water. Limited resources. No help. Brooke Fontanne has to find a way to cross the massive sea of sand that is the Mojave Desert. And with the Southwestern United States now exiled from the Union in wake of the water crisis the entire area is in chaos. Brooke is forced to battle not just the desert elements, but gangs and marauders looking to take whatever they want. Agent Hill  Two years have passed since the GSF nearly collapsed. The mole responsible may have escaped, but he was never forgotten, especially by Agent Sarah Hill. Now, the mole has resurfaced as a mercenary for the world's most dangerous terrorist groups. And when Hill discovers what his next job is, it's a race against time to stop him before a nuclear weapon falls into the wrong hands. But if she has to choose between stopping the bomb, or stopping him, will she be able to keep her finger off the trigger? Terror Rising Texas Border Patrol Agent Angela Gannon discovers a terrorist plot by an ISIS sleeper to unleash a devastating attack. After her partner goes missing, the FBI shows up wanting answers, and Angela must convince her superiors that everything is connected. The clock is ticking, and the terrorists are on the move. Will Angela be able to stop them, or will ISIS succeed in delivering massive carnage to America? In "Terror Rising," everything is at stake.