Free for the Kindle!

 

Since the sequel is coming out next week, the first of the Jimmy Wyler books is now for free.

Kansas City, 1954.

Jimmy Wyler is a fighter punching his way straight to the middle. All he wants is to make enough dough to buy his girl, Lola, a ring. And maybe make the gang back at St. Vincent’s orphanage proud.

A slick mobster named Cardone has an offer for Jimmy – money, and lots of it – for a fix. Jimmy takes the fight. The ring is almost on Lola’s finger, until Jimmy collides with Whit – another mobster with another up-and-coming fighter.

Whit has an offer of his own. Same fight, different fix. Now Jimmy is caught between two warring factions of the Kansas City underworld. He can’t make a move without someone getting mad, getting even, or getting dead.

From sweat-soaked fight halls to darkened alleyways, the countdown has begun. With his girl and his manager in the crossfire, everything Jimmy ever learned about fancy footwork and keeping his defenses up may not be enough …

Fight night is approaching and nobody is going to be saved by the bell.

Out Today!

“Beauty might just be the beast.”’

Calla Williams is not like other girls. Most girls spend their whole lives trying to be beautiful, Calla already is…and she hates it.

When she is shipped off one summer to live with family friends in their dilapidated Mississippi plantation, Calla is faced with the prospect of living with strangers and their teenage son. This is annoying because, like any other boy, he is sure to fall in love with her on sight. However, Griffin Davenport is not your typical teenage guy. With his hot temper and half of his face severely scarred, “hate at first sight” is closer to what she finds.

Though the two teens try to stay out of each other’s way, an odd attraction to each other makes staying away anything but easy.

Now, Calla must deal with growing feelings, her own prejudices, and finding the secret to Griffin’s past. As hate turns to friendship and friendship becomes something more, Calla learns a startling truth: God uses even how we look in His plan for our lives.

Coming Soon

Free Today!

Los Angeles 1954

Patrick “Felony” Flynn has been fighting all his life. Learning the “sweet science” from Father Tim the fighting priest at St. Vincent’s, the Chicago orphanage where Pat and his older brother Mickey were raised, Pat has battled his way around the world – first with the Navy and now with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Legendary LAPD chief William Parker is on a rampage to clean up both the department and the city. His elite crew of detectives known as The Hat Squad is his blunt instrument – dedicated, honest, and fearless. Promotion from patrol to detective is Pat’s goal, but he also yearns to be one of the elite.

And his fists are going to give him the chance.

Gangster Mickey Cohen runs LA’s rackets, and murderous heavyweight Solomon King is Cohen’s key to taking over the fight game. Chief Parker wants wants Patrick “Felony” Flynn to stop him – a tall order for middleweight ship’s champion with no professional record.

Leading with his chin, and with his partner, LA’s first black detective Tombstone Jones, covering his back, Patrick Flynn and his Felony Fists are about to fight for his future, the future of the department, and the future of Los Angeles.

Dead Man: The Midnight Special

DINNER AT THE BROOKLYN MORGUE is more than just a seventies zombie flick. It’s also a cursed movie. A trail of violence and murder has followed the film’s re-release across the country and Matt Cahill is determined to find out why...and put an end to the madness. His quest takes him to L.A., where he infiltrates the inner circle of the Tarantino-like director who’s behind the rediscovery of this piece of cinematic horror and is either a tool of Mr. Dark…or the evil entity’s most formidable enemy. The truth comes out in a night of unmitigated terror that will either put an end to Mr. Dark’s reign of evil…or mark a blood-soaked new beginning…

New Batman Novel

Two men separated by murder: Thomas, the rebellious doctor and heir to the vast Wayne empire, and Bruce, his son, whose life is forever altered by witnessing his parents' murder. The slaying of Thomas and Martha Wayne is the torturous point on which Bruce turns to become Batman.

The Dark Knight's file on the case has long been closed, the foundations of Bruce Wayne's secret life secure in the simple genesis of a mugging gone horribly wrong.

These foundations are shaken, however, when an unexpected guest invades the grounds of Wayne Manor, raising questions about the event that ended the lives of the mother he loved and the father he worshipped, and sparked his unquenchable drive to protect and avenge.

To discover his real family history, Batman must face down old foes, his only confidant, and the evil heart of Arkham Asylum, and shoulder the new burden of a dark legacy.

Free Through Sunday!

Atlantic City, 1957

Professional boxers Roberto Varga and Michael Boyle were once pals growing up at St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago. Under the guidance of Father Tim, the fighting priest, they learned values, respect, responsibility, and how to fight fair.

But those lessons didn’t stick with Boyle. Two years after leaving St. Vincent’s, Boyle and Varga face-off in the ring with Boyle pounding out a bloody, lopsided decision, Varga swore wasn’t on the up and up.

In the seven years since, their careers have taken different paths. Guided by unscrupulous manager Tommy Domino, Boyle is positioned for a title shot against Sugar Ray Robinson. Varga, however, has struggled in a career still haunted by the bloody loss to Boyle.

When the boxer scheduled to fight Boyle in Atlantic City breaks his hand two weeks before the fight, Domino scrambles for a replacement. He finds Varga toiling in a Philadelphia gym and offers him the rematch Varga has been waiting years to get. For Varga, it’s a chance to finally even the score, a chance to get the title shot he’s always dreamed about. But Boyle is not the only formidable foe aligned against Varga.

Redemption comes at a bloody price – a price perhaps too high for Varga to pay …

I Love This Art!

Max Allan Collins is a favorite author of mine, and I love Glen Orbik's painted covers.  This one offers the best of both worlds, and comics legend Terry Beatty's illustrated pages inside as well.

Of course, the book concerns itself with the 1950s witch hunt that went on through comics during that time and ultimately resulted in the Comics Code Authority, which publishers freely adopted, to protect young readers.  The CCA has gone by the wayside these days because most of today's comics crowd tends to be much older.

Colins has always been adept at combining real history in his mystery capers, and this one looks like it's going to be informative and entertaining in its treatment of the subject material.

Read a section here.

Free Book!

For today only.  This is a book by one of my longtime writer buddies!

A killer has something to say—and he’s using her obituary column to get his point across...

When columnist Monroe Donovan receives an obituary notice with a date of death two days in the future, she dismisses it as a typo. Then, a second incorrect obituary comes in, and a woman whose name matches the name of the deceased is murdered—on the date listed in the obituary. Now, Monroe realizes that something much more sinister is happening. A serial killer is trying to communicate with her.

She turns to Detective Lane Brody for help, but her attraction to him is complicating her already complicated life. And when the killer turns out to have a disturbing connection to Monroe, complications turn deadly.

Blade Runner Noir

It's a mockup, not actually available, but I love this kind of art.  Grew up on a lot of books that looked just like this.

Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

I didn't even know this one came out yesterday.  No fanfare?  My wife and daughter are big fans of Janet Evanovich, so I'm surprising them both with ebook copies today.  They didn't know it was out either, I'm guessing.  Otherwise I wouldn't have seen either of them yesterday.  :)

Whether it’s monkey business, funny business, or getting down to business, Janet Evanovich’s Lizzy and Diesel series proves that there’s no business like Wicked Business.

Lizzy Tucker’s once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel.

When Harvard University English professor and dyed-in-the-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth-floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust. Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth-century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences. On their way they’ll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.

Diesel’s black sheep cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, also wants the Stone. His motives are far from pure, and what he plans on doing with the treasure, no one knows . . . but Lizzy Tucker fears she’s in his crosshairs. Never far and always watching, Grimoire has a growing, vested interest in the cupcake-baker-turned-finder-of-lost-things. As does another dangerous and dark opponent in the hunt—a devotee of lawlessness and chaos, known only as Anarchy.

Treasures will be sought, and the power of lust will be unmistakable as Lizzy and Diesel attempt to stay ahead of Anarchy, Grimoire, and his medieval minion, Hatchet, in this ancient game of twisted riddles and high-stakes hide-and-seek.

Recommended: Alafair Burke

Sixteen-year-old Julia Whitmire appeared to have everything: a famous father, a luxurious Manhattan town house, a coveted spot at the elite Casden prep school. When she is found dead in her bathtub, a handwritten suicide note left on her bed, her parents insist that their daughter would never take her own life.

But Julia's enviable world was more complicated than it seemed. The pressure to excel at Casden was enormous. Abuse of prescription antidepressants and ADHD medication ran rampant among students; an unlabeled bottle of pills in Julia's purse suggests she had succumbed to the trend. And a search of Julia's computer reveals that in the days leading up to her death she was engaged in a dangerous game of cyberbullying against an unlikely victim.

NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced the case is a suicide, but she knows from personal experience that a loving family can be the last to accept the truth. When the Whitmires use their power to force a criminal investigation, Ellie's resistance causes trouble for her both at work and in her personal life. As she is pressured to pursue a case she doesn't believe in, she is pulled into Julia's inner circle—an eclectic mix of overly precocious teenagers from Manhattan's most privileged families as well as street kids from Greenwich Village. But when the target of Julia's harassment continues to receive death threats, Ellie is forced to acknowledge that Julia may have learned the hard way that some secrets should never be told.

PI Ed Noon For Free!

For free today, the first Ed Noon private eye book written by legendary author Michael Avallone.  Haven't read this one myself, though I have read other Ed Noon books, and am looking forward to this one.  It's already loaded up on my Kindle.

"It's like this. You've been alive about thirty years, been all over the world, know your way around the toughest, biggest cities. You're no pushover. You've had lead dug out of your shoulders, fractured a leg here, and broken an arm there. You're tough, see? No lily-of-the-valley. A real hard guy. And yet with
all that, you can be dumb. Real dumb. Like when you shoot off your mouth just because you have a gun in your pocket." --Ed Noon, Private Eye

Enter Ed Noon on the world scene. The tallest burlesque queen in the universe hires Noon to find her even taller lover, who has vanished under strange circumstances. He turns up stabbed and dead on the steps of the Museum of Natural History, and sets Noon on a twisted murderous missing diamond-encrusted trail that ultimately leads to the Statue of Liberty. Noon meets Lt. Mike Monks of NY’s Homicide Dept who will become not only a Captain, but also Noon’s greatest ally and friend over the next four decades.

Ed Noon Series:

The Adventures of Ed Noon, Private Eye, spanning over 30 novels written between 1953 and 1990. Noon starts out dirt poor with a tiny office in Midtown Manhattan (his “Mouse Auditorium”) but success moves him to better digs, with a lovely secretary (Melissa Mercer) and, eventually, the most important client of all: the President of the United States. The series concludes with a daring turn towards science fiction in the last two novels. Through it all, the wisecracking Noon is consistent: a movie and baseball-obsessed romantic who always fights the good fight. And, more often than not, wins.

New Fathomless Abyss Novella Out Today!

My buddy Phil Athans has written the FIRST "Fathomless Abyss" novella (27,000 words of edge-of-your-seat SF goodness) that is the first in a new wave of exciting adventure.  Less than the price of a movie ticket ($2.99) and entertains you even longer.

I urge you to pick this one up if you like SF and adventure.  You'll have a blast in the Abyss.

Devils of the Endless Deep is the first follow-up to the anthology Tales From The Fathomless Abyss.

When the Fathomless Abyss opens onto an unsuspecting world, the Smog that chokes its upper regions is released. And with the Smog come the Tabagie—raiders and scavengers from thousands of different worlds and thousands of different epochs. The Tabagie get what they can, while they can, then the Abyss closes again, and no one knows how long it will be before it opens again.

When the Abyss opened on Earth in 1986, Keegan O’Malley fell in, and Guillermo Cordova floated out. Keegan is left trying to adapt to a strange new world populated by a mix of aliens from the far-flung reaches of the universe and humans from both his past and his future. And Guillermo, a 16th Century Spanish Conquistador, will have to make his way in a future world that’s no less alien.

But Guillermo knows something Keegan doesn’t.

He knows when and where the Fathomless Abyss will open next.

Philip Athans, the New York Times best-selling author of Annihilation, leads a team of fantasy and science fiction veterans into a bizarre new world, and a fascinating new project: a shared world series as exotic and expansive as the infinite Abyss.

Free Book Today

In each installment of 7 Hours, a character is visited by the enigmatic Thomas Constant, who makes a heart-stopping statement: “You are about to die. But you may choose from one of three options: Live seven more hours, travel back in time and relive seven hours, or accept the inevitable and die now.”

New York City cabdriver Adrian Colfax awakens one night muttering a mysterious string of numbers and with the fragments of a bizarre dream in his head. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something he’s supposed to do. Something very important. He just can’t remember what it is.

Through a series of haunting visions, Adrian comes to believe he's been transported back in time to prevent the violent murder of the girl he loved. But he also learns that saving Kate could result in something even more catastrophic.

The clock is ticking. What will you do with the time you have left?

Longmire

Don't know if anyone else caught the first episode of Longmire on Sunday night, but I did and I liked it quite a lot.  There are some rough parts, but I believe they'll get that ironed out soon enough.  My favorite part is the wide open landscape.  Pretty country.

Rizzoli and Isles Season 3

Rizzoli and Isles are back for Season 3 and their lives are more complicated and fun than ever.  You have got to love Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) and her family's tendency to overinvolve.  Crisp crime writing and characters you can root for.

Franklin and Bash! Season 2!

Hands down one of my favorite shows.  I love the characters and the cases.  If you didn't catch the series last summer, you gotta have a look this year.  Absolutely wonderful writing, pacing, and one-liners.

Tuesday nights at 9 on TNT.

New Nicolas Colt Mystery Out Today

Things are going pretty well for Nicholas Colt. He has a loving relationship with his wife, his blues band has a house gig at a club in Jacksonville, and his adopted daughter is finishing her senior year in high school. He has no intention of reactivating his PI licensee, and he certainly has no plans to travel to Tennessee to investigate a double homicide and an old girlfriend’s missing brother.
Until she tells him something that makes his heart pause and his jaw drop.

Are the Harvest Angels, the white supremacist militia that Colt shut down three years ago, back in business?

Colt makes the trip to the mountains and soon thinks he has it solved: typical copycat case. Unfortunately, another unimaginable atrocity is waiting for him back home in Florida. Colt walks into a bloodbath, and he soon realizes nothing is typical and nothing is solved.

While relentlessly hunting down those responsible, Colt is abducted, drugged, and brainwashed before he can alert the authorities. Now he is a pawn in a heinous scheme that is bigger, badder, and literally more earth-shattering than he could have possibly anticipated.

In this gripping follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Pocket-47, Jude Hardin once again keeps the pace frantic and the suspense nonstop. With the stakes raised exponentially this time, Crosscut is sure to keep thriller lovers turning pages.

New KOP Novel

I read the first two books and had a blast with them.

Juno Mozambe once had a life. That was when he was a dirty cop, married to a woman who suffered such profound abuse that she murdered her vile, drug kingpin father. Juno loved his wife and did his best to help her survive her guilt, her drug habit, and her desire to end her life on the dead-end planet of Lagarto.

When she died, however, Juno’s life went downhill. And then his first partner, the corrupt chief of the Koba Office of Police, was murdered. The man responsible, Emil Mota, is using the KOP for his personal gain. Juno has been laying low, but now he’s ready to do whatever it takes to take down the bastard.

Rather than working from inside the system, he’s decided that the only way to take down the KOP is to create an independent base of power. So he gets involved with a team of dirty cops and starts working as a rent-a-thug for a whorehouse that needs protection.

Juno’s last partner knows that his risky plan has a purpose, but she’s that rarest of creatures on the hothouse planet of Lagarto: an honest cop. She can’t help him.

When Juno discovers a series of profoundly twisted murders, he faces a bleak possibility: in his desperate quest for vengeance against the man who targeted him for death, Juno may have placed himself beyond any hope of redemption....

Still Only 99 cents! Summer Special!

A nice beach read for the guy in your life.  And maybe for women who like hard-hitting heroes.

Havana, Cuba. 1954.

Mickey Flynn is an ex-Korean War vet turned merchant marine. He was born in the ghettos of Chicago and raised in an orphanage with his younger brother, Patrick. He was one of several young men who received an education from the nuns at St. Vincent's.

But he was also taught the "sweet science" by Father Tim, a Golden Gloves boxer and retired police officer who only knew one way to bring a troubled boy to manhood. Father Tim worked with his young charges, taught them how to jab and punch and throw a hook that seemed to come out of nowhere. When the young men left St. Vincent's (Our Lady of the Glass Jaw), they were changed, fit and ready to take on the troubles the encountered around the world, no matter where they found them.

Now Mick's in Havana, working on WIDE BERTHA, his ship. After surviving a fierce storm at sea, the last thing Mick and the crew need to do is get crossways with the Italian organized crime flooding Havana, but it doesn't take much to put him in the cross hairs of a vengeful mob boss working for Lucky Luciano.

Unable to get free of bad luck and unfortunate circumstance, Mick ends up in the ring in an illegal boxing match fighting a human killing machine.

Soul Seducer Out Now

My good friend and fellow writer Alicia Dean has a new book out today!

She has spent her entire life fighting death. Now she’s falling in love with him. . . .

Audra Grayson became a nurse in order to help save lives. But one night after a brutal beating, she almost loses her own. The near-death experience opens a door between the world of the living and the world beyond. Two Grim Reapers invade her life. One is charming, with the angelic blonde looks of a saint and the black soul of a psychopath. The other is dark, dangerously attractive and, in spite of her distaste for his reaper duties, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.

When Audra's patients begin to die unexpectedly and her loved ones are threatened, she will risk her life—even her soul—to save them. But can she risk her heart to an inhuman being whose very purpose is to take those she is trying to save?

Rogue Angel Magic Lantern

Have you read the latest Rogue Angel novel?  If not, I have three to give away.  Just email me here.  I'll put the names in a hat and have my son draw out the winners a week from today.

 

Caught My Eye

17-year-old Banyan is a tree builder. Using salvaged scrap metal, he creates forests for rich patrons who seek a reprieve from the desolate landscape. Although Banyan's never seen a real tree--they were destroyed more than a century ago-his missing father used to tell him stories about the Old World.

Everything changes when Banyan meets a mysterious woman with a strange tattoo-a map to the last living trees on earth, and he sets off across a wasteland from which few return. Those who make it past the pirates and poachers can't escape the locusts . . . the locusts that now feed on human flesh.

But Banyan isn't the only one looking for the trees, and he's running out of time. Unsure of whom to trust, he's forced to make an alliance with Alpha, a beautiful, dangerous pirate with an agenda of her own. As they race towards a promised land that might be a myth, Banyan makes shocking discoveries about his family, his past, and how far people will go to bring back the trees.