Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers. His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge. The villains are vicious. The settings are sinister. And good does NOT always prevail...If you prefer cleavers to kittens and fiends to fairies...then welcome to the GRUESOMELY FUNNY Tales from Schwartzgarten.

    Well, I guess he can't be any worse than that guy who had the job before him, right?

    . . both human and otherwise.Twelve-year-old Crispin has lived on the streets since he was nine—with only his wits and his daring to sustain him, and only his silent dog, Harley, to call his friend. He is always on the move, never lingering in any one place long enough to risk being discovered. Still, there are certain places he returns to. In the midst of the tumultuous city, they are havens of solitude: like the hushed environs of St. Mary Salome Cemetery, a place where Crispin can feel at peace—safe, at least for a while, from the fearsome memories that plague him . . . and seep into his darkest nightmares. But not only his dreams are haunted. The city he roams with Harley has secrets and mysteries, things unexplainable and maybe unimaginable. Crispin has seen ghosts in the dead of night, and sensed dimensions beyond reason in broad daylight. Hints of things disturbing and strange nibble at the edges of his existence, even as dangers wholly natural and earthbound cast their shadows across his path. Alone, drifting, and scavenging to survive is no life for a boy. But the life Crispin has left behind, and is still running scared from, is an unspeakable alternative . . . that may yet catch up with him.There is more to this world, and its darkest corners yet to be encountered, in this eBook’s special bonus: a spine-tingling excerpt from Dean Koontz’s forthcoming novel, 77 Shadow Street.

    He works for an engineer, a maker of the eccentric, loyal and totally individual mechanicals who are Christopher's best friends. But after a devastating accident, a secret is revealed and Christopher's world is changed for ever... What follows is a remarkable adventure, as Christopher discovers who he really is, and what it means to be human.

    Following the explosion that ended The Hostage, the teens are sent to a boot camp in Spain - to learn some discipline, but also for their own protection. On the way there, the group are attacked and forced to carry out a high-risk diamond theft.

    She wants the people she works with to be safe. Already FCGH has had attempted murders, dead pharmacy techs, hospital shootings, and stolen drugs. When she is attacked by a mugger after her shift one night, Cherise barely gets away; she ends up running into the arms of FCGH’s Chief-of-Security, Vince Acardi. Vince took his job guarding the hospital seriously, and he was old enough to know things were going to get worse before they got better. When pretty nurse Cherise barrels into him, he promises to keep her safe until her attacker is caught… No matter what the cost. HOPE FOR FINLEY CREEK IS A 10,000 WORD SHORT STORY THAT TAKES PLACE IMMEDIATELY AFTER WOUNDS THAT WON'T HEAL!

    In a matter of minutes, six innocent bystanders -- and Cavanaugh -- are dead. But when his body vanishes, and his weapon mysteriously appears in Hartman's luggage, Hartman is plunged into an unfathomable nightmare, and suddenly finds himself on the run. Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., Anna Navarro, field agent for the Department of justice, has been asked to investigate the sudden -- seemingly unrelated -- deaths of eleven men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a secret file, over a half-century old, linked to the CIA, and marked with the same puzzling codename: Sigma.But as Anna follows the connecting thread, she finds herself in the shadows of a relentless killer who is one step ahead of her, victim by victim. Together she and Hartman must uncover the diabolical secrets long held behind the codename, Sigma. It will threaten everything they think they know about themselves and confirm their very worst fears...

    She used to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so clandestine it doesn't even have a name. And when they decided she was a liability, they came for her without warning. Now she rarely stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They've killed the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a threat. They want her dead, and soon. When her former handler offers her a way out, she realizes it's her only chance to erase the giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires only makes her situation more dangerous. Resolving to meet the threat head-on, she prepares for the toughest fight of her life but finds herself falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her unique talents in ways she never dreamed of. In this tautly plotted novel, Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new heroine with a very specialized skill set. And she shows once again why she's one of the world's bestselling authors.

    Mystery short story. Previous published in the anthology Eight the Hard Way.A murder in San Francisco's Tenderloin District is nothing new, but when ex-cop and private investigator Cal Corwin stumbles across the body of a witness she needs to find a runaway teenager, she find the two cases inextricably entwined - and time is running out.Off the Leash is a short Cal Corwin mystery. Set against the rich backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area, Cal Corwin stories brim with intrigue and fully fleshed characters from cops and criminals to hit men, oddball family and unexpected allies.The California Corwin P. I. Mystery Series:- Loose Ends- In A Bind- Off The LeashMore to come!

    His wife, Amber, has divorced him and is remarrying a rich wall street hedge fund manager. His boss hates him, his partner tolerates him, and he likes to stand on the ledge ten stories up, bottle in hand. Four years ago his infant son passed away in his crib sending his life into a tail spin. All he has left is saving lives, and saving them on his terms. That's not enough. Enter Brooklyn, a fiery red headed stringer, who works the overnight selling video and stills to the New York media and she's had a long standing crush on Brian. She's out to prove that a paramedic isn't the only one who can save a life.

    As students at a special high school that trains them to be secret agents, six teenagers struggle to complete the training exercises as a team before being sent out into the field to sink or swim.

     After finding the ruins of a Mayan temple—and saving the world from a terrorist attack—in One Rough Man, Pike Logan has been given the chance to rejoin the Taskforce, a top secret counterterrorist organization that operates outside the bounds of US law. But before he becomes an operator again, he’s determined to get Jennifer Cahill into the Taskforce as well, though no one else seems willing to give a female civilian a shot. Jennifer herself would rather focus on setting up their new company, Grolier Recovery Services, an archaeological research agency that Pike hopes will also serve as a sophisticated cover for future Taskforce missions. When Grolier receives its first job offer to check out a site in Roswell, New Mexico, Jennifer convinces Pike to go. But once they arrive it’s clear that there’s a lot more going on than a simple search for Indian artifacts, and uncovering the secrets carefully guarded out in the desert could not only cost them their future with the Taskforce, but their very lives.

    But it's a matter of life and death...

    Sherlock Holmes stories captured readers' imaginations for more than a century. Now Tracy Mack and Michael Citrin will capture the hearts of a new generation with a unique new twist on these beloved mysteries. Few know: Holmes was assisted by a band of devoted boys, street urchins who loved to solve mysteries, called the Baker Street Irregulars. These boys go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone undetected. Now, in this exciting tale, Wiggins, Ozzie, Simon, and the rest--with the aid of Pilar, a gypsy girl--help Sherlock Holmes solve the case of the deaths of the Amazing Walendas.

    There are places where brave men and women fight a never-ending battle against evil in order to keep our country and all other countries safe. There are places where the fate of our planet is being decided, even now as we speak, the consequences of which will echo through history.None of these places are in North Dakota.Carson Fender, seventh grader and notorious prankster, knows this. He's lived in North Dakota for his entire life, going to the same boring school every day, the same boring movie theater every week, and the same boring state fair every year. Nothing ever changes, and nothing ever happens. That is, until today. Because today a desperate man is going to hand him a package with a dire set of instructions. And that package is going to lead Carson to discover that there's a secret government agency operating in his small, quiet North Dakota hometown.And that this agency needs his help.