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.

    With a security clearance above Top Secret, Mac and his off-the-books deep-water espionage group must gather Russian intel to avert world war. Join nuclear-submariner Mac as he extreme-dives to a thousand feet, battles giant squids, and proves what brave men can achieve under real pressure, the kind that will steal your air and crush the life out of you. Operation Ivy Bells: A Mac McDowell Mission updates the popular bestseller by Robert G. Williscroft, a lifelong adventurer who blends his own experiences with real events to craft a military thriller that will take your breath away.

    But having evaded his pursuer, Mike soon makes a shocking discovery – the victim’s young daughter and her nanny are hiding in the rear footwell. Only after agreeing to help the woman and the child does Mike learn who the murdered man was. And when he discovers who pulled the trigger he realises how much danger they are all in.Mike has to fight for his life to protect a woman and a child he doesn’t know. And when the death count rises, he discovers who his friends are and what kind of man he really is...

    . .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?

    The groom is dead. When a tycoon’s son is murdered the night before his wedding, the grief-stricken father offers private detective Dan Reno a life-changing bounty to find the killer.Reno, nearly broke, thinks he’s finally found himself in the right place at the right time. But when a band of crooked cops get involved, Reno finds himself fighting for his life.Who committed the murder, and why? Which cops can he trust, if any?Haunted by his murdered father and a violent past, Reno wants no more blood on his hands. But a man’s got to make a living, and backing off is not in his DNA.Traversing the snowy alpine winter in the Sierras and the lonely deserts of Nevada, Reno must revert to his old ways to survive. Because the bounty won’t do him much good if he’s dead.

    They quickly discover why the house was so cheap and that the past isn't so easy to ignore.

    Find out how far Alex Stone goes to protect her lover, save the innocent and speak for the dead in Stone Cold, the first book in Joel Goldman’s Alex Stone Thriller series.

    But a student is missing. And he must find her. Compelled to leave his wife in Bath, Deans heads to North Devon, where he encounters Denise Moon, a medium, who exposes him to a psychic dimension he could never have imagined existed, in what soon becomes a murder hunt. Gripped by inexplicable phenomena attributed to his own ‘paranormal awakening’ and alienated from all but his new mystical muse, Deans is closing in on a sophisticated killer... ...but all is not as it seems, and Deans’ future is about to change.

    However, her sorrow turns to bone-chilling confusion when she receives a message Caroline sent days earlier warning that her death would be no accident. Long used to being a pariah to her family, Deirdre covers her tattoos and heads to Manhattan for her sister’s funeral.The message claimed Caroline’s husband, Theo, killed his first wife and got away with it. Reeling from the news, Deirdre confronts Theo on the way to the cemetery, and he reveals both his temper and his suspicion that Deirdre’s “perfect” sister was having an affair.Paranoid and armed with just enough information to make her dangerous, Deirdre digs into the disturbing secrets buried with Caroline. But as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes that her own life may be at risk…and that there may be more than one killer in the family.

    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.

    Is it the Outfit, the Mob, Bolsheviks, or the unions? In the dark speakeasies and nightclubs of Chicago’s underworld, Alfano treads the sharp edge of sanity and delusion, praying that it’s just mob vengeance and not typical Chicago politics. In Depression racked Chicago, three people crash into each other, each hoping for vengeance, redemption, and salvation. Alfano thought he’d seen it all in his twenty years on the force, but this is brutally and explosively different. Can he stop the killer or will the killer get to him first? . . . and to add pressure, the city’s corrupt mayor demands that Alfano catch the killer before the gates to the Century of Progress World’s Fair and Chicago are opened to America and the world. And coming in May, 2016, Book 2 in the Detective Tony Alfano series, Chicago Jazz. What will happen when an assassin employed by Mussolini’s fascists arrives in Chicago searching for three men intent on political murder? Can Alfano stop the assassin before they can kill . . . again?

    Trouble is, everyone thinks Larry's guilty, from the Louisiana Governor right down to the accused, who has confessed to the crime and now wants to make peace with his maker.Jac soon discovers that someone doesn't want anyone - especially a lawyer - digging around this case. And they'll stop at nothing to make sure Larry's execution goes ahead on schedule. Now Jac must decide whether he's prepared to risk his career, his reputation and his life to save a man who, by his own admission, is a murderer . . .When DEATH is your only hope...Ascension Day is the most exciting and compelling death-row thriller since The Shawshank Redemption.

    That dream shatters when the town’s pride--an African-American child prodigy--goes missing. As the only woman equipped for the job, Anna takes the case but soon discovers the town suspecting her estranged brother… and herself.

    They were old friends. He knew only one way to deal with pain. Hunt it down and kill it." Police Officer Jack Stratton is hiding. Hiding from the world. From pain. From the memories of losing his best friend, Chandler, in Iraq. Suffering from PTSD and isolated from those he cares about, the last thing Jack expects to hear is his foster sister Michelle, Chandler’s sister, is gone. The words cut straight to his core. Although the police think she just took off, he knows Michelle would never leave those she loved behind–like he did. Now he must take action, find Michelle, and bring her home or die trying. The first novel in the Jack Stratton Collection introduces us to handsome rogue, Jack Stratton. A debt of honor to his dead foster brother drives Jack into a world of deception and lies. As Jack’s walls begin to crumble, he must navigate the quirky characters that seep into the mystery of his foster sister’s disappearance. And in the sleepy community of Darrington, like so many places in this world, nothing is as it appears. The hidden mysteries that often go unnoticed begin to emerge as Jack and his new unpredictable sidekick begin to turn over the rocks. Following a trail that has grown cold, Jack must tread carefully to protect his job, his family, and his life. This stand-alone novel features rogue hero Jack Stratton. Look for other books in the Jack Stratton Collection including Jack Knifed, Jacks are Wild, and now Jack and the Giant Killer. They can be read in any order, however, they are best experienced in sequence.

    Lauren Remley. Salty Manhattan homicide detective Joe Tenacce and his partner, Jen Salito, are assigned the investigation.Tenacce quickly realizes that, to solve the case, he will need to enlist the help of his son Danny, a theoretical physics-graduate-student-turned-religious-cryptologist whom he despises. Their quest for "the book" and its meaning takes the Tenacces and Salito on a harrowing journey over two continents, through layers of increasingly complex ciphers, all while being pursued by a clandestine cult who will stop at nothing to obtain the book for their own nefarious designs.Can Danny and the detective duo find and decode the book? If so, what does the book say and can they keep it out of the hands of their enemy. Finally, what is the significance of the narrative—woven throughout the novel— that describes the tragic life of physicist Michael Richards?These are the questions that arise as the plot winds and turns toward its surprising end.A Dan Brown-like thriller, but with a twist!