Private Eye: Cameron Caldwell Mystery


Jason Deas - 2014
    But, after getting a DUI in his police cruiser it isn’t really an issue. The real issue now is staying alive. Cameron knows secrets that could cost him his life and flees to what he hopes is a quiet mountain retreat. Launching a detective agency in the town of Miner’s Bluff, he unknowingly stumbles into a world of murder, moonshine, shifty characters, and even deeper secrets. But the biggest secret belongs to him. It’s the cornerstone of all his troubles. Cam can look into another’s eyes and see their darkest sin—their most evil act. And it’s beginning to take a toll on his sanity. The murder investigations of his past and present collide as Cam tries to keep his life from unraveling and his eyes from tearing him apart.

The Last Track


Sam Hilliard - 2010
    But as Mike and a local officer follow their elusive quarry deeper into the woods, the killer begins a hunt of his own… Some say his gift is supernatural, others consider it a curse. To Mike Brody, it’s a penance. From the back cover: “A good mix of mystery and adventure, The Last Track will appeal to any thriller reader. A good yarn, not to be missed . . . highly entertaining and extremely difficult to put down.” ~John A. Dunay, Police Lieutenant (Ret. ‘06) ~Police Advisor to Department of Justice, Dinwanyah and Kurdistan, Iraq ‘08 “The Last Track, by Sam Hilliard, is full of mystery and suspense to intrigue the mind. The story captures the thrill of the chase and the fear of the unknown. What kept my interest was the struggle for that we desire most in the form of love, success, money, and complete control. This book will keep your reading lamp on in the wee hours of the night!” ~Spc Amanda Daigle, Jan-Dec 09, Kirkuk, Iraq. ~Purple Heart, Feb 09 “The Last Track is one of the best thrillers our book club has ever read. Chock full of unexpected twists and turns, this well-crafted mystery kept us guessing up until the very last page. A natural storyteller, Hilliard knows how to build suspense and create compelling characters. We can’t wait to go on another adventure with Mike Brody!” ~Revolution Reading Club

Only the Strongest Survive


Ian Fox - 2011
    What is behind this horrific crime?Raised in a strict religious institution, Emely never knew her parents. Fearing a life of poverty, she starts up a small business that deals mainly with buying and selling stocks. Thanks to her extreme dedication and knowledge, the company grows over time into a major conglomerate. In her desire for ever greater financial security, this beautiful, ambitious CEO has accumulated a number of enemies.But now she finds herself locked in the basement of a remote house in the middle of a forest, watched over by one of her captors who makes her buy and sell stocks for him so he can get rich. Her challenge to survive becomes even more complicated when Emely's captor falls in love with her. ...Check out the great review I got from the independent Midwest Book Review: Another intriguing opening marks Ian Fox's style, which is to grab the reader's attention from the first paragraph of description: "Emely Donnovan, the CEO of Donnovan Corporation, slipped out of her black Porsche Carrera GT sports car and hurried to the entrance of the office building. "Here are the keys, Mr. Kruger," she said to the porter. "The usual space, please."The day proves anything but usual for fast-paced CEO Emely, one of the wealthiest women in America, when she is kidnapped and buried alive; and the story that evolves will delight mystery and thriller readers who would initially predict quite a different outcome from the initial events.As Emely and her kidnapper evolve some unusual bonds, a strange dilemma comes to unfold: what happens when terrorism and a plot for financial gain changes to unexpected romance which is experienced on both sides?There has been much written about emotional connections between victims and captors that evolve as a response to a struggle for survival on the victim's part - but none hold the depth and dilemma of ONLY THE STRONGEST SURVIVE, where the captor himself is drawn to his victim. At first the two are separated by their different objectives: hers to survive, his to reap financial gain: "When she lay on the bed or sat at the desk, she replayed the memory of what had happened to her. She thought about it so much that it gave her a headache. When she wasn't thinking she was crying, and when she wasn't crying, she was asleep.John was not thinking of her. His thoughts revolved around the money that would soon be in his account. Every morning he rang his bank to check the balance. He knew that a transfer from abroad took at least three days, but still hoped that things would perhaps happen sooner."Add to the budding romance other protagonists who have different interests in the changing situation plus swiftly changing motives and treachery and you have a story that follows no predictable path ... and herein lies its delight.Ian Fox's writings will prove compelling to readers who seek complexity and difference in plots. ONLY THE STRONGEST SURVIVE is especially recommended for readers who, in the past, have read many thrillers with too few real surprises. Those who seek the thrill of the unexpected will find Ian Fox's works satisfying on many levels: filled with the depth, detail and turns that you just don't find in too many novels nowadays.Link: midwestbookreview.com/mbw/feb_12.htm#...

A New Life


David J. Antocci - 2013
    She has no idea how she got there, and notices changes in herself that she cannot explain. Haunted by unsettling dreams of her past, she sets out to escape, joined by Eric, who finds himself in the same predicament. Standing in their way is a madman, and his band of willing followers, with a mind set on murdering their unwelcome visitors. An eccentric hermit who has been living there for years offers them refuge, but they must deny his generosity. Escape is their only option. Yet, they discover this deceptive paradise is harder to leave than they had ever imagined. One mystery leads to another, until their escape throws them into even greater danger as Abby’s frightening past finally catches up with her. Her escape is only the beginning.

A Perfect Spy


John le Carré - 1986
    Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.

Ames To Kill: The Killing League, The Recruiter, Killing the Rat


Dani Amore - 2013
    He must return to his small hometown and be a successful recruiter to get another chance at his dream. He's looking for a few good recruits....and he won't take no for an answer.KILLING THE RAT: A Mafia lowlife robs the head of the Detroit Mob and before entering the FBI's witness protection program, decides to celebrate with plenty of booze, an expensive hotel room and a high-priced call girl. When a hitman tracks them down, the bullets start flying, people die, and the money disappears.

Night Over Water


Ken Follett - 1991
    England is at war with Nazi Germany. In Southampton, the world’s most luxurious airliner—the legendary Pan Am clipper—takes off for its final flight to neutral America. Aboard are the cream of society and the dregs of humanity, all fleeing the war for reasons of their own…shadowed by a danger they do not know exists…and heading straight into a storm of violence, intrigue, and betrayal…

Choice of Weapon


C. Marten-Zerf - 2013
    To others he was a soldier, forged in the flames of war. But to Manon, who needed his help, he was her ultimate Choice of Weapon.Garrett had spent most of his adult life fighting other people’s wars. Now he lives in the highlands of Scotland. Alone but not lonely. Reclusive. Hiding from the person that he had become. Eschewing the violence that was once his way of life. But then he receives a phone call from a friend who needs his help. An orphanage in South Africa is missing some of its children, suspected kidnapped, and the local corrupt police will not help. It is up to Garrett. And he is once more drawn into a world of dark and deep brutality as he tries to do what is right. Together with the guard from the children’s home and an old combat compatriot, he discovers a world of darkness and depravity that threatens to overwhelm him, forcing him to react in the only way that he knows how. The way that he swore never to follow again… because someone has to protect the children.

Night Blind


Michael W. Sherer - 1988
    In the space of a few months, he lost his only child, his public affairs job, and his marriage. Now, a year later, he delivers newspapers and washes dishes in a restaurant, able to face the world only at night. Blake figures he’s fallen about as low as he can go.But an elderly customer on Blake’s paper route is brutally slashed to death in her home, and Blake is charged with murder. In a desperate attempt to prove his innocence, Blake gets caught up in a maelstrom of murder and deceit involving a pre-Civil War secret naval intelligence mission, hundreds of millions of dollars in buried gold and a potential bio-weapon that could cause a worldwide pandemic.When the only man who can help him is assassinated, Blake finds himself on the run from the cops, a murderer and a shadowy rogue French military intelligence agent. His only hope of staying out of jail is his ex-wife’s law firm. His only hopes of staying alive are his wits and the sudden appearance of a beautiful and mysterious naval intelligence officer. But Blake’s not sure he can trust even them.Night Blind is a breathless thrill ride on and under the streets of Seattle as one man’s quest for the truth turns to a fight for survival—his own and possibly the world’s.

Beyond the Wall, Books One and Two


Lucas Bale - 2015
     Centuries have passed since life ended on the blue planet. Humanity's survivors are now dispersed among distant colonies, thousands of light years from the barren, frozen rock that was once their home. At a time when power means everything, the ultimate power, the imperium, rests with the Consulate Magistratus. In return for its protection, citizens must concede their rights absolutely. The Magistratus controls interstellar travel, access to technology, even procreation. Every citizen is implanted with a device to monitor their location, health and emotions. Freedom, religion and self-determination are anachronisms. Humanity's true history survives only in whispers of a secret archive. Yet there are those who preach a new religion and who want to be free. A revolution is coming… The Heretic In the cold of a winter's night, a small village is the subject of a brutal attack. A fourteen-year-old boy, Jordi, sees armed men approaching and manages to wake his family. He and a handful of survivors flee into the frozen, snow-covered forest to wait for the preacher who told them their way of life was based on lies. Shepherd, a freighter-tramp and smuggler, is commissioned to deliver illicit medical supplies to a hostile border planet near the Wall. He is dragged into a fight he does not believe in and a desperate struggle to protect his ship, his way of life and the lives of the persecuted few who seek only freedom. Defiance The murder of a man in the lowest caste is seen as inconsequential, but Weaver, one of the few Caesteri lawmen who still believes in justice, refuses to ignore it. Fighting his own indoctrination, and the voice inside his mind that forces him to ignore his conscience, he follows the trail of evidence all the while struggling to hang on to the thin thread of his humanity. The killer he hunts is violent and unstable, and haunted by her own callous ghosts. A woman who sells her body to fuel her drug addiction. She possesses an almost supernatural ability navigate the wormholes which connect humanity's distant colonies - an ability the Magistratus fears and must eradicate. Weaver will follow her to a planet the Magistratus has abandoned, where the only law is that of criminals. And then to the furthest reaches of space, where the truth that awaits them leads to the corrupt heart of the Republic - a truth the Magistratus will do anything to conceal. The Heretic and Defiance are the bestselling first two books in a longer tale spanning four volumes. The award-winning Beyond the Wall series is gripping, epic space opera, written as hard science-fiction. It is the story of humanity's future and the discovery of the truth of its past.

Enemy in Blue


Derek Blass - 2011
    YOU KNOW WHO YOUR ENEMY IS?The streets aren't safe when your enemy wears a blue uniform and a gold badge.What if the good guys weren't good?What if a cop went rogue and killed an innocent man?What if it was all caught on video and the cop would do anything to cover it up?Chase this lawless cop through the streets and to a scintillating series of showdowns with Cruz Marquez, a young attorney trying to nail down his enemy in blue.Will justice be served?

Ethan Justice: Origins


Simon Jenner - 2012
    By the evening, he’s struggling to survive. John Smith’s risk avoidance policy just expired! Waking up beside the gorgeous Savannah Jones, John is shocked to learn she was for hire, and he can’t pay the price - a thousand pounds or broken legs. In desperation, he turns to best friend, Mark, for the money. Only one problem - Mark has a dagger in his back.John and Savannah are plunged into a dangerous world where wits and adrenaline are their only weapons and trust in each other their only certainty. As the body count mounts, they discover Mark wasn’t the person John thought, and his terrifying invention may well end up killing thousands, John and Savannah included. A race to recover the missing invention pits the unlikely pairing against ex-SAS psychopath, Gregory Fisher, a man who will stop at nothing and kill anyone in his way to wreak revenge against the Government who stole his livelihood.When Smith and Jones team up, the result is explosive.This is a fast-paced, action-packed, character-driven thriller, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, cringe, cry and cheer. This book contains a few violent scenes, a dash of sex and the odd bit of bad language, so please don't buy it if you are easily offended.

The Book Case


Nelson DeMille - 2011
    New York City bookstore owner Otis Parker is dead, killed by a falling bookcase. A tragic accident? Corey isn’t so sure. With deadpan humor and skeptical eye, the determined detective is on the case, and everyone who has the misfortune to be connected to Parker is a suspect—the failing mystery writer in town to sign books; the beautiful young wife, and the bookstore employee who appears to be more nervous than aggrieved. In his debut Kindle Single, DeMille deftly maneuvers through the twists and turns of this fast-moving story, delivering his legion of fans yet another gripping read.

Doubt


C.E. Tobisman - 2016
    Right away, her new boss asks her to find out whether a popular GMO causes healthy people to fall ill. Caroline is only supposed to dig in the trenches and report up the ladder, but her tech background and intuition take her further than planned. When she suspects a link between the death of a prominent scientist and the shadowy biotech giant, she cries foul and soon finds herself in the crosshairs. The clock is ticking and thousands of lives are on the line…including her own.Now this rookie lawyer with a troubled past and a penchant for hacking must prove a billion-dollar company is responsible for thousands of deaths…before they come after her.

Black Coke


James Grenton - 2011
    They call it:BLACK COKENathan Kershner is an agent with the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency and a former special forces operative. Often working undercover, he has single-handedly brought down some of the most wanted criminals in the world.But when he clashes with the drugs cartel and tries to stem the flow of Black Coke into Europe and the US, he finds himself up against his most difficult assignment yet.On a mission that takes him from the crack houses of North London to the underground drug labs of southern Colombia, Nathan enters the darkest regions of the war on drugs, where treachery, greed and violence reign.With the drugs cartel growing in power by the day, Nathan has to decide just how far he is prepared to go to avert disaster.