Three books in one!With the atmosphere of urban decline and inner-city violence, these three murder mysteries are set in the metropolitan area of Salford, Manchester - one of the most deprived areas in England.Ex-rugby player turned social worker Gus Keane is a man who, faced with the disinterest of the Police, becomes a private investigator in order to find out who murdered his boss. Not surprisingly, law enforcement don't want someone meddling in the case, but increasingly they turn to Keane's local knowledge to bring the culprit to justice.Three related detective mysteries in one bumper volume on KindleAs reviewers have remarked, these books form a trilogy but each can be read on its own, without having read the others. This is partly because Gus Keane is an immediately likeable detective: he has his faults, and is always getting into trouble; but he has a way of getting the truth out of people and, hardened to the rough world of Salford, his local knowledge is key.THE THREE BOOKS IN THE TRILOGYTACKLING DEATH: A pacey pulp Private Eye thriller set in a northern English townEx-rugby football player turned social worker Gus Keane is getting ready for retirement when his boss gets murdered. Finding himself under suspicion, Keane turns private detective to find out the truth. But when he closes in on the killer will Keane come out on top or fall victim to the murderer’s desperate moves?DEAD CERTAINTY: Social worker turned Private Eye Gus Keane returns in this gripping murder mysteryIf something happens in Salford, Manchester, it is generally bad news and when two dead bodies turn up within a few hours of one another, it is no exception. With the local force stretched to the limits and firing blanks ex-rugby player Gus Keane is asked to step in to help find the culprits. What follows is an ever thickening plot as Keane gradually begins to unravel a mystery from Salford's shady past.FALLING FOUL: Private investigator Gus Keane is back with a difficult new case to solveWith his ex-wife appearing back on the scene and relations with his girlfriend Marti troubled, the murder of one of Gus Keane's colleagues comes at a really bad time. Yet when his friend Jimmy is accused of the murder, he really must step up to the plate. With his knowledge of the local area, and a healthy suspicion that nothing anyone says is true, private investigator Keane must find the killer before Jimmy is convicted.These books are also available as individual titles on Kindle and are FREE on Kindle Unlimited.

    In fact, it was such a lousy place to live, you could hardly give the real estate away. Populated by gangsters, muggers, grandmothers with baseball bats, and parents working long hours on the wrong side of the law to pay for tenement apartments with no view, the place was also colorful, with memorable characters straight out of a Damon Runyon novel. It was in this live-by-your-wits atmosphere that Dan Fortune grew up. One of his best boyhood friends was Andy Pappas. They broke into the holds of ships together, stealing cargo, watching one another’s back. But things happen. Dan lost his arm in a failed robbery attempt, and decided it was time to figure out another way to make a living. With the people and geography of Chelsea his only areas of expertise, he put out his shingle: Dan Fortune, Private Detective. But Andy liked his life of crime, and power was addictive. Andy stayed the course, killing his way up until he took over the docks. He was boss of bosses, a vicious racketeer. Still, he’d let Dan be familiar, call him by his first name, even give him crap – until now. Now Dan is trying to track down a teenager named Jo-Jo Olsen. It looks like a routine missing-persons case, until Jo-Jo’s friends start dying violently, one by one, just before Dan can question them. Then Andy Pappas warns Dan that unless he cools it on Jo-Jo, he’ll end up on the rapidly growing pile of corpses. It doesn’t make sense. Why does Andy Pappas care about Jo-Jo, and what does Dan need to do to stay alive long enough to find out and save the kid? Act of Fear is the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel “Collins has the ability to set in motion a sequence of events that moves with the inevitability of a huge boulder rolling down a mountainside.” – New York Times “A master of crime fiction.” – Ellery Queen “Act of Fear is the most interesting private detective novel I have read in a long time. It is a highly original piece of work in a field not noted for much originality. Mr. Collins is a writer to watch and, above all, to read.” – Ross Macdonald

    And now I have to save the world. When the biggest game developers on a dying Earth create their latest VRMMORPG, it takes on a life of its own. Impossible to control, and even harder to predict, the game world in Spectres & Skin is officially classed as a parallel universe, and people clamor to escape the horrors of overpopulation and pollution by moving over. Recent graduate Matthew Blake is down on his luck. A climbing accident has robbed him of the use of his legs, his best friend is better than him in every way, and he just cannot find a job. VR is his only escape from a life he can't stand. When he is invited to peek into the exclusive new game world, he can't resist. Is his luck about to change? No. No it isn't. S&S: Exodus is a LitRPG novel, meaning it is extensively inspired by gaming mechanics and includes a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ calculations. It contains scenes of a graphic nature, permadeath, a really judgmental user interface, and a prophecy hat warns of the destruction of both universes — and that's just week one. This is not a book about a superhero, or even a true hero at all. It's the story of the first step a perpetual sidekick takes on his long path towards Champion; a path he perhaps doesn't feel he deserves. Though he does progress, and take on challenges, the first step is always the hardest on a long journey. If you're looking for a story about an overpowered killing machine from page one, you've got the wrong book!

    Its purpose is one of certitude with a little dash of homage thrown in for good measure. For some, it may just be seen as an extended or alternate ending. For others, it may be taken as Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse's final will and testament. Your choice...

    Hitler has just conquered Poland, but life in London continues much as it did in peacetime, albeit a little more restricted since the introduction of petrol rationing. No bombs have been dropped on the city as yet, but the population go about their daily business under the constant threat of German air raids, and a blackout remains in force at night. For Scotland Yard and the criminal fraternity, however, it is business as usual. When a pawnbroker’s assistant is wounded by a gunman wearing a gasmask, it appears to be a straightforward case of a bungled armed robbery, but as Hawker proceeds with his investigation, the more facts he uncovers the more confusing the affair becomes. A red-headed soldier, a missing gun, a dead cat, an empty violin case and a damaged violin are only a few of the threads that have to be unravelled before he can wrap up the case – with a little help from Sherlock Holmes.

    As well as juggling three lively children single-handed, she has ruffled a few feathers by becoming Greater Manchester's first female Detective Chief Inspector. At last, Janine has been given her first murder enquiry to head. The body of a local deputy head teacher is found with a slashed stomach and left to die. With a suspect on the run, an elderly dying man and a seven-year-old child as the only available witnesses, Janine knows this won't be an easy case to crack.

    No marks, no bruises. The suspects are many: spies, hit men, a gunrunner, and one of Hollywood's most powerful and mysterious film producers. Detective Sam Carver becomes entangled in a perilous reignited Cold War between Moscow and Washington. He chases leads from Europe to Africa.But Carver faces other demons, too. He is haunted by Dylan Cross, a killer who got away a year earlier. She knows his secrets, whispers to him in his dreams. His obsession with Dylan threatens his new case and his relationship with Lily Hernandez, a uniform cop who wants to work as his partner.Last Dance explores dangers within and without, and how we reconcile the damage, love, and things lost, in a Los Angeles that is as tempting and alluring as it is cruel and sinister.

    Having walked the beat in the early eighties in some of London’s most fractious communities, he worked on a variety of specialist teams dealing with murder, fraud, witness protection and surveillance before becoming a Detective Inspector responsible for investigating the most serious cases of police corruption.

    Burke's newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner.  She wants Burke to find a monster for her—so she can kill him with her bare hands.In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss's renegade investigator teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child's murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements.  Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest—and Vachss at the peak of his form.

    Another dead in a hail of bullets. Would the lovely Lina be next? Even here in the drizzly rain outside the El Cuchillo, she was hotter than a welder's torch. Here's your chance to meet Shell Scott, the sharpest Private Eye you've ever known - the darling of all dames, the envy of all guys.

    His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging . . . she doesn't have much to offer at all, in fact, and somehow that makes her disappearance all the more disturbing for Stoner who knows what can happen to girls that nobody wants. And he's got a sick hunch that it happened to Cindy Ann, right across the Cincinnati border. Stoner's hunches are almost always on the money, and they rarely feature happy endings. But while the story may be ugly, in Valin's hands it has the brutal grace of a world-class boxing match.

    Marlin sees this as a perfect opportunity for the fishing foundation to educate people across the country about the importance of protecting another fishery. He also knows that Mallard Cove Marina on Virginia's Eastern Shore will make the perfect new home for the show, and that its resident charter boats and crews will be part of a great new cast. While he is prepared to deal with the big egos of some of the old cast members, he hadn't figured on having a shadowy saboteur that wanted the show cancelled, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it cancelled...permanently. Nor is he ready for the old cast members that will also stop at nothing to get re-hired and bring the show back south.So, follow the Mallard Cove gang as they deal with those old cast members, and they race to put a stop to the sabotage before someone else gets killed or the show becomes history!

    An SAS soldier with a healthy disregard for authority. Tales of slaves and temples in the Kampuchean jungle. The First Lenny & Lucas Adventure Lenny Cox joined the Marines to protect the innocent. The adventure was a bonus. So lying in the humid Southeast Asian jungle watching over a CIA supply drop is his idea of a good day out. That's until he sees the recipient of the drop is an ex-Khmer Rouge unit, four years after the killing fields. Lenny does what he should never do—he searches for the truth. But in this place the truth is slippery, and everybody has dirty hands. Even the peasants taken as slaves. He figures there's not much a lone Marine can do, until a chance encounter with an Australian SAS soldier who might know as much as Lenny knows, and might be just as unhappy about it. Together they take on their own governments, spies, and the Khmer Rouge, in a part of the world that the rest of the world just wants to forget.

    Oh, on the surface they might look like your next-door neighbors: Tom Kelly, professor in economics, his wife Dee, art gallery owner, teenagers Maya and Scott, baby boy Jacob, and of course the family’s lovable Goldendoodle Ralph. All perfectly nice people. But for some reason the Kellys can’t stop bumping into dead bodies and getting mixed up in all kinds of murder and mayhem, and is it their fault they’ve got a knack for solving crime? After all, the family that sleuths together, stays together, right? The Kellys, on their way back from Thanksgiving Break, are caught in the snowstorm to end all snowstorms. This is the big one, and they’re forced to stay the night at a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere. So when Ralph finds the body of a dead man buried under a foot of snow, they’re not that keen to get involved. Especially when the man turns out to be the famous Hot Gangster: the gang member who became a celebrity and a model because of his mugshot. But with the motel on lockdown, and the police unable to get there because of the blizzard, it’s up to the Kellys to find out who murdered Hot Gangster, knowing full well that the killer is locked in there with them, watching their every move! Murder Motel is the first book in the brand-new humorous cozy mystery series The Kellys.

    Being sued by a client. And broke. Things can’t get any worse for Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz, in this blistering debut novel from award-winning writer Tom Trott. That’s when his best friend’s body washes up on the beach. Could it really have been ten years? What happened? How could his life have ended like this? He needs answers. But with the city in the grips of organised crime, and struggling to deal with an influx of legal highs, who cares about just another dead drug dealer? Joe, that’s who. After all, you can’t make old friends.