The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card


R. Weir - 2014
    Jarvis Mann is a private detective, whose business thrived on the mundanePaying the bills by shadowing cheating spousesGetting in the middle of messy divorcesAnd working for the fat-cat insurance companies running down false claimsOn a Winter’s Sunday afternoon, a young man graces his office stepsHis words coaxing with the simple declaration of “Please”Convincing Jarvis to help find a valuable missing Ernie Banks rookie baseball cardWith a dry sense of humor, Jarvis tours the Denver neighborhood with the ladDoor to door, friend to friend, until a clue leads to a surprising discoveryA young man’s personal pain revealedWitnessing a friend’s act of self-sacrificeBoth teenagers teaching Jarvis a life lessonThat will shape him with new hope and resolve

In a Small Town


Marc A. DiGiacomo - 2012
    As the first page unfolds, Matthew has been shot on duty. His assailant is on the run. While recuperating, Matthew experiences haunting dreams of death he observed earlier in his career as a cop. These dreams are vivid, appear to be real, and are not like anything you have read before.Meanwhile, Matthew's partner, Detective Donny Mello is in Italy attending a funeral for his grandfather. It is a death not met by natural causes but by an assassin's bullet. Donny's grandfather was the head of a mafia family. His past caught up to him in the most lethal way.Back in Hutchville, things get worse for Matthew with the arrival of a beautiful FBI agent. She is seeking Donny Mello for questioning. Matthew is unaware of the agent's intentions but believes it has something to do with a secret he is holding deep within himself.Can Matthew keep from answering the agent's questions? Will Donny return to help find the person responsible for shooting his partner? You will have to read, "In A Small Town" to find out.

Famous Last Words


Katie Alender - 2014
    It seems like she's seeing things. Like a dead body in her swimming pool. Frantic messages on her walls. A reflection that is not her own. It's almost as if someone—or something—is trying to send her a message.Meanwhile, a killer is stalking Los Angeles—a killer who reenacts famous movie murder scenes. Could Willa's strange visions have to do with these unsolved murders? Or is she going crazy? And who can she confide in? There's Marnie, her new friend who may not be totally trustworthy. And there's Reed, who's ridiculously handsome and seems to get Willa. There's also Wyatt, who's super smart but unhealthily obsessed with the Hollywood Killer.All Willa knows is, she has to confront the possible-ghost in her house, or she just might lose her mind . . . or her life.Acclaimed author Katie Alender puts an unforgettable twist on this spine-chilling tale of murder, mystery, mayhem—and the movies.

Triple Cross Killer


Rosemarie Aquilina - 2017
    Nick responds, leaving a trail of devastation in the two cities.In Detroit, co-ed partners and wise-cracking lovers, detectives Jaq McSween and David Maxwell, team up with Sarasota detectives Abel Mendoza and his partner, Rabbit, to find this daunting killer.When Jaq’s friend, the lovely nurse, Rita Rose, takes a chance on love again, she gets caught in Nick’s web. Working with the ME, she joins in, adding her perspective when events take a sinister turn.  Can this diverse team of characters pool their insights, barbs, and taste for bad food to save Rita when she discovers the final clues or will she become the next victim?

We Are Holding the President Hostage


Warren Adler - 1986
     Aging Mafia Don Salvatore Padronelli, a.k.a. the Padre, is furious when fanatical terrorists capture his beloved daughter and grandson on a trip to Egypt. Fed up with diplomatic caution that prolongs their captivity, the Padre and his loyal henchman cleverly insinuate themselves into the White House to hold the President and his wife hostage. Now the Padre calls the shots on getting the President to take steps to release his family. But will his plan go as expected? - HOW THE GODFATHER INFLUENCED WE ARE HOLDING THE PRESIDENT HOSTAGE - I have long been a fan of Mario Puzo's The Godfather ever since we attended Don Wolfe's creative writing course in the New School years ago. Mario was more than ten years my senior, a World War II veteran, while I was a twenty-year-old college graduate who took Dr. Wolfe's freshman English course at NYU, inspiring me to devote my life to writing. The class met once a week, but a few of us from the class were chosen by our classmate Harold Applebaum, who was a published poet that frequently appeared in The New York Times, to meet periodically in our homes to read our work and generally socialize. Mario and I were among some of the select few; we liked to think that Harold had chosen us because he deemed our work as reflecting superior talent. We were flattered of course, although in retrospect, many of the students in that class were extraordinarily talented. I think there were about six of us among Harold's chosen, all determined writers hoping to make our mark and who were all flattered by Harold's attention. Years later when The Godfather was published, I was quick to purchase the book and gobbled it up with relish. I thought the book was wonderful. When it hit the silver screen its impact was extraordinary and spawned a giant career for my fellow classmate. I can trace a direct line from The Godfather to my characters in We Are Holding the President Hostage. Another influence was the fact that I had grown up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, in the neighborhood that was the headquarters of Murder Inc. and had observed in person many of the gangsters who were part of that era. Another influence of mine was the fact that I had become familiar with the White House and its inner workings, having been a consultant to the Nixon White House with a blue pass that gave me access. Although there was tight security in those days it was far more lenient than it is today. It was also a time when hostage taking was just beginning to show its ugly face and the news was filled with incidents in which the taking of a hostage was becoming a political act of choice. For me, it was a question of connecting the dots. I was able to imagine a story where a group of mafia characters, one of whose daughters was taken hostage in Egypt, were able to infiltrate the White House with the express purpose of persuading the president to use mafia tactics to deal with the hostage taking. The Godfather will always have a special place in my heart, being one of the major influences that sparked We Are Holding the President Hostage, including my political experience and the events going on around me during the 1980s. But it really comes down to my relationship with Harold and Mario. If I had never known them, then perhaps the course of events wouldn't have played out the way they did and the idea for my book never would have materialized.

An Accidental Royal Kidnap


Paul Mathews - 2020
    And when the feisty royal accuses George of kidnapping her, his very ordinary life is turned completely upside down, as the party princess takes root in his apartment, causes royal waves among his friends and family, and demands to go walkabout on the streets of London.It’s blue-blooded comedy by unofficial royal appointment in this hilarious, and often surreal, regal romp that's packed with majestic mystery, aristocratic intrigue and Great British humour. Guaranteed to raise a laugh from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace!This very British comedy novel is the first in a series starring reluctant hero George Nearly, the unpredictable Princess Araminta of Essex (‘Minty’ to her friends) and a host of other quirky characters – all of whom make Mad King George seem like a perfectly sane individual. Royals and commoners collide with comical consequences in these uniquely English adventures that will bring a smile to the faces of even the grumpiest gargoyles at Windsor Castle.

Solomon's Compass


Carol Kilgore - 2013
    The lure of buried treasure. And a sexy former SEAL who makes U.S. Coast Guard Commander Taylor Campbell crazy. What more could any woman want. Right? Taylor is on a quest to unearth her uncle’s buried treasure—a journey so far out of the realm of her real life she can barely fathom it. There’s one other minor glitch. Taylor's certain the buried treasure was all in Uncle Randy's dementia-riddled mind. Now he’s dead. All the same, Taylor is in Rock Harbor, Texas, to settle her uncle's estate, including following his directions to the treasure. When someone tries to kill her, Taylor's quest becomes personal. She tosses Randy's official cause of death—Drowning Due to Accident—out the window and starts looking at his Rock Harbor acquaintances. Could Randy's treasure be real? Jake Solomon is in Rock Harbor under false pretenses. He loathes the charade dictated by his father’s plan to protect Taylor Campbell. But Jake will do what it takes to protect Taylor from the fate that befell her uncle and the other members of a tight circle of Coast Guardsmen called the Compass Points who served together on Point boats in Vietnam. Due to the danger involved, Jake’s dad has ordered him not to become involved with Taylor. Disobeying his father was Jake’s first mistake. Taylor is attracted to Jake as well, but she refuses to wait for Jake to locate the killer when she knows her plan will force her uncle’s murderer into action. But the killer's actions are just what Jake is afraid of.

Crime after Crime


Tara W. Kent - 2014
    The duo’s attempt to crack the case before anymore killings suddenly becomes stifled by Alexander Kane, a soap opera actor hoping to turn method actor and claim higher rolls in the business.The trio forced together must cope with one another while hopefully breaking a case that seems to drag Kane further down the estranged path that holds its familiarities to his old life in the soaps.The intense role now being played by all the parties involved come quickly careening into a nightmare as the game being played turns into a means to teach the Detective’s and Kane of their shortcomings and their indiscretions against the potential serial killer waiting and ready to strike.

Bad News


Amy Cross - 2019
     A man with a past. And a reporter who'll do anything to uncover the truth. When she's fired from her job at a TV station, Maggie Carter sets out to prove that she's got what it takes. Determined to be as devious, deceptive and duplicitious as her most successful colleagues, she heads to the small town of Ridge Falls on a one-woman mission to discover the truth about the disappearance of 15-year-old Kimmy Duchette. But Ridge Falls hides dark secrets. Kimmy isn't the first girl to go missing in the area, and soon Maggie is drawn to the man who was suspected of killing another girl ten years earlier. Is Thomas Roper a murderer who got away with his first crime, or is he an innocent man who fell victim to rumors and innuendo? And did news coverage of the previous case prevent it ever being solved? Bad News is a horror story about a horrifying disappearance, a town living in fear, and one reporter's determination to discover the truth and make a name for herself. But how far is Maggie really willing to go, and what will she find when she reaches the dark heart of a terrifying local tragedy?

The Whispers


Lisa Unger - 2014
    While she is recovering from a horrible accident that takes the lives of her husband and oldest daughter, and as she works to help her younger daughter move forward, Eloise experiences her first psychic vision. Though she struggles to understand her new found gifts, Eloise finds a way use them to save lost women and girls—for whom her help may be the only way out…From an author whose “gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose” (Associated Press) have won her critical acclaim comes The Whispers: a story that delves deep into the human psyche and the mind of one unforgettable heroine.

Muse


Michael Cecilione - 1998
    A handsome author strikes up a conversation with an actress in a bookshop in Manhattan, and she knows this is the start of something that will change her life forever.

Awakening


Randal Sloan - 2015
    Miranda Summerlin finds that she has been given nanites that give her enhanced mental abilities and extraordinary hand-to-eye coordination. She attends the nearby Space Academy where she uses her mental genius to work on cutting edge astrophysics and she joins the school shooting competition team after discovering she can hit wherever she aims at on a target. Intending to keep her skills low key, Miranda must step up to prevent a terrorist attack against the school that only she has the skills to do so. Miranda has also drawn the attention of a girl on the soccer team who becomes her nemesis at the school. While playing pool at a school party, Miranda lets her irritation with her nemesis cause her to let some of her skills slip thru to others. But Miranda will soon be faced with the need to use many of her skills and in so doing, Miranda will come to the attention of her true nemesis, a rogue Organization that wants her nanites. She will need help to escape from their agent. In the process, she will discover her true identity. But what is the cost for her rescue? How will she deal with the Organization? >>>The first in the Near Future series, Awakening is a near future sci-fi thriller in a world that combines science that just might be possible soon with psychic visions and an evil Organization that is backed by an unknown power. Coming soon, books 2 and 3 in the series and a novella too! Sign up for my Reader's List at http://randalsloan.com/nearfuture/

Dark Eye


William Bernhardt - 2004
    Sometimes they stare straight at the kind of sights most people turn away from. But in the blazing neon and searing sun of Las Vegas, she can’t see the man who is watching her and thinking to himself: She is the one. . . .From the mountain views beyond the Strip to the dingy dens of forbidden pleasure, Susan Pulaski loves Las Vegas. A woman who wears a gun at her side and her heart on a sleeve, Pulaski is the perfect fit for her city and her job: unraveling the minds of deviant personalities. Until a killer begins decorating Sin City with the horribly disfigured bodies of once beautiful young women. . . . and Pulaski’s own demons go on a binge.Eight months after her cop husband’s death, her life is spinning out of control–just as her detective colleagues start searching for a serial killer who methodically stalks his female victims and plunges them into an orgy of terror. When a violent incident earns Pulaski a pink slip from the LVPD and a trip to detox, she’s out of the hunt altogether, so she begins to desperately try to regain her job, her reputation, and custody of the niece she’s been raising on her own. It seems hopeless–until Pulaski meets the one person who can lead her into the mind of a madman no one else can understand. Darcy O’Bannon is a twenty-five-year-old autistic savant whose relationship with the world around him is so unusual that it forces Pulaski to view the crimes from a bizarre–but ultimately insightful–perspective.White-knuckling her way to the center of the case, she becomes the key player in a desperate hunt for a killer who believes he has found divine inspiration in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. But even with the assistance of Darcy’s astonishing skills, Pulaski is in even more danger than she knows. For the man she seeks is watching her, seduced by her frailties and strengths, her beauty and boldness. To finish his masterwork of horror, he needs her.In a blistering novel that brings together glitz and goth, human weakness and human genius, and a murderous psychopath who is all too chillingly real, master storyteller William Bernhardt has created an unparalleled literary Las Vegas thrill ride that will leave readers breathless until the final, stunning page.From the Hardcover edition.

A Human Element


Donna Galanti - 2012
    The savage killer haunts her dreams, tormenting her with the promise that she is next.Determined to find the killer, she follows her visions to the site of a crashed meteorite in her hometown. There, she meets Ben Fieldstone, who seeks answers about his parents’ death the night the meteorite struck. In a race to stop a madman, they unravel a frightening secret that binds them together.But the killer’s desire to destroy Laura face-to-face leads to a showdown that puts Laura and Ben’s emotional relationship and Laura’s pure spirit to the test. With the killer closing in, Laura discovers her destiny is linked to his, and she has two choices—redeem him or kill him.

The Majat Testing


Anna Kashina - 2014
    But when he rescues a boy from certain death, he find himself out of his league. The boy has a Majat-level talent for weapons. The Keepers send for a Diamond Majat to test him, and on arrival, Egey Bashi is thrown into events where his own resolve to be a Keeper will be sorely tested. "The Majat Testing" is a 7,000-word story set in the world of the Majat Code, a distant prequel to Anna Kashina's "Blades of the Old Empire".