The Origin Of Murder

the-origin-of-murder

Enjoy the newest release in the same series as “The Deadly Dog Show”.

Somebody is murdering the passengers on a luxury cruise through the Galapagos Islands. Private eye Roger Bowman and his scientist wife Suzanne just happen to be in the right place at the right time (or is it the wrong place at the wrong time?) to be invited to help the local police solve this complex murder case.

As the passengers on their ship retrace Charles Darwin’s famous journey of discovery, natural selection comes at the end of a 9mm pistol. Only the fittest will survive. Will that include our detective couple? This fast-paced thriller presents a suspenseful whodunit set in one of the most fascinating places in the world.

What Laurel Sees

what-laurel-seesWhen Laurel Fischer has a disturbing vision that precedes her ex-husband’s murder, Laurel becomes a prime suspect. The harder Laurel battles to regain custody of her only daughter, the more that seems like motive to authorities. A tabloid reporter, Joe Hardisty, is assigned to cover the story, profiling Laurel’s visionary gift. As skeptical about relationships in general as he is about faith, Joe’s guard is high, but the Laurel has a way of unearthing Joe’s long guarded secrets.

Mortom

MortomMortom: population 986.

On the outskirts of town, 33-year-old Craig Moore is found drowned in the lake. A loner and town eccentric, few attend the funeral.

One week later Andy Crowl arrives in Mortom, still stunned by his cousin’s death and equally confused why everything was left to him. The two hadn’t spoken in years and shared little outside of fierce childhood competition.

But Craig hardly did him a favor. The estate amounts to little more than a drained bank account and a property overridden with junk. When Andy finds a dead rat under the refrigerator with a key in its mouth, he thinks it’s some sort of sick joke. Then he finds the letter left by Craig, written two days before his death … detailing the rules of “the game.”

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No Hard Feelings

no-hard-feelingsIn this, the second book in the Kate Stanton mystery series, past mistakes and family secrets dating back to the Second World War continue to haunt Kate Stanton and her granddaughter, Liz, as they try and put their terrible past behind them – no easy feat, especially when a murdered man’s remains are discovered in a shallow grave on the property Liz inherits from her estranged father. This soon leads to innuendo and rumors of another murder spree that took place on the property over 50 years ago, conveniently covered up by the governor at the time. Kate and Liz’s efforts to uncover the truth are soon hampered by a killer who’s intent on finishing a job started half a century ago.

The Sneaker Tree

the-sneaker-treeRemember when you were a kid and you had that one magical summer that seemed to last a lifetime? Cooper, Gooby, Chuck, Cliff and Bolo don’t know it, but they are in the midst of a summer they will never forget. Their small town is paralyzed with fear as a serial killer preys upon children and The Golden Boys seem to be the only ones who have a chance to stop him. A life-long bond is forged between them as they confront each other, their worst fears and a killer that is more than anyone could possibly imagine.

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Viral Intent

viral-intentAn unidentified virus in the CCMC Emergency Department is killing dozens of people, a horrific death of a popular politician in the French Quarter has the NOPD hopping, and internet chatter suggesting the unspeakable has chilled the hearts of law enforcement all over the world. Read how Alex and Jack learn to play well with the CDC, FBI, and Secret Service to save the streets of New Orleans. 

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The Deadly Dog Show

the-deadly-dog-showPrivate detective Roger Bowman is hired to impersonate a wealthy sponsor showing a champion German Shorthair Pointer named Juliet at dog shows in California. His undercover assignment is to ferret out whether some of the winners are cheating. Before too long, bodies of murdered judges start popping up at dog show venues and Roger’s wife Suzanne is being stalked by a mysterious admirer.

With Juliet’s help, Roger and his fellow detective and professional dog handler Bruce find a key clue. The trail leads from San Francisco in Northern California to San Francisco in West Texas. Reviewers love the whodunit mystery and the inside information about how dog shows work. So will you!

Dream Student

Dream-StudentWhat would you do if you could see other people’s dreams? If you could watch their hidden fantasies and uncover their deepest, darkest secrets…without them ever knowing? 

Sara Barnes is about to find out. She thought that all she had to worry about was final exams, Christmas shopping and deciding whether she likes the cute freshman in the next dorm who’s got a crush on her. 

But when she starts seeing dreams that aren’t hers, she learns more than she ever wanted to know about her friends, her classmates…and a strange, terrifying man whose dreams could get Sara killed. 

“Dream Student” is the thrilling first installment of the Dreams series.

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Stolen Daisy: A Novel

Stolen-DaisyA dark past. A dangerous secret. A deadly disappearance.

Samantha Beckett has one goal of her 12-year-old existence: the safety of her three-year-old sister. And that responsibility is just enough to keep her head above the tumultuous waters of their mother’s rage. Then one stormy spring day Samantha comes face to face with her worst nightmare, and she knows her world will never be the same.

Will Sam find the courage to trust the police before it’s too late?

The fate of this young girl rests in the proficient hands of Detective Brody, but even with a dream team of law officials on his side, time is quickly running out. The investigation is surrounded by secrets and deception at every turn, and the closer Brody gets to the truth, the more he understands what’s at stake, and it is almost more than he can bear.

A beautiful reminder that love will overcome the dark shadows of evil.

‘Stolen Daisy’ sheds light on child abuse, human trafficking, and the evil which hides amongst us in plain sight. So, too, does it teach us how a single person can change the course of someones life, and create self-worth out of hopelessness; of how pure intentions will effect change for the greater good of humanity.

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Sufficient Ransom: A Novel

sufficient-ransomSufficient Ransom is a fast-paced, mystery/thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat reading long past your bedtime. Art dealer, Ann Olson, lives a comfortable life in an affluent enclave of San Diego with her entrepreneur husband and young son, Travis. Every mother’s worst nightmare comes to pass when Ann’s son disappears from the backyard one evening.

Ann is certain the social worker who unjustly accused her of child abuse is responsible, but as the investigation into his kidnapping unfolds, and other children in San Diego begin to disappear, it is soon evident something more malevolent is afoot. Sarno takes on some big issues such as atheism, faith, and organized crime, and deftly puzzles them together in a page-turning, well integrated plot you will eagerly try to decipher. A set of engaging and unique characters—a dubious social worker with a hidden past, a helpful and concerned pastor, a husband who is frustrated with his distraught wife who seems to attract trouble everywhere she goes, inhabit the world of Sufficient Ransom. An excellent first novel—sharp, multi-faceted, and impeccably written.

The Bones of Others

The-Bones-of-OthersSome monsters live in your head. Not this one. 

Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world—and her new-found love apart.

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Victim City Stories Issue 1

Victim-City-Stories-Issue-1Start your adventures in Victim City for just $0.99.

A old-fashioned hero fighting to save the lost in a city finding new ways to hurt. Pray for the Bleeding Skull in The Chains That Bind, The Skull That Bleeds.

Thrill and cringe to teen splatter shame in Beer Bong Bloodbath.

He’s not an anti-hero. He has no moral code. There is no redemption. He’s the bad guy. Survive the Murder Man in Violation: Red Holes.

Intense action, brutal crime, shocking sleaze, and chilling horror. You’ll find it all in Victim City, the town that fear calls home.

Your trip to Victim City begins with Issue 1 at just $0.99 for kindle

Terminal Connection: A Thriller

Terminal-ConnectionIn TERMINAL CONNECTION Steve Donovan pursues a serial killer exploiting a defect in his virtual reality terminal and uncovers a terrorist plot and national conspiracy. Chased by his conscious, his former employers, and Federal investigators, the serial killer becomes a terrorist plot becomes a Chinese attack becomes a computer virus becomes a CIA conspiracy to thwart the consolidation of intellgence agencies into a homeland defense. As superpowers collide, Steve must stop the killer and avert a war by breaking the TERMINAL CONNECTION.

Terminal Connection: A Thriller

Terminal-ConnectionIn a setting reminiscent of THE MATRIX and in the man-verses-science spirit of JURASSIC PARK, the players in this mystery and suspense techno thriller novel move between reality and virtuality, finding danger, death, and betrayal in both worlds. 

What if a terrorist were a computer virus, its weapon a defect, and its target the U.S. military’? Welcome to the present, where the lines are blurred between terrorists and governments, virtual worlds and reality. In a war of information, everyone is on the frontline. 

Steve Donovan, founder of NEXUS Corp, has developed a virtual technology that could help his daughter walk again. Riddled with guilt over the accident that crippled Brooke, Donovan buries himself in developing the Nexus. But when a young girl dies using the Nexus and a defect is discovered, NEXUS CEO Austin Wheeler decides lawsuits are cheaper than a recall. Exploiting the defect that triggers fatal seizures, a hacker introduces a deadly virus in the form of a virtual serial killer. Torn between his conscious and his invention, and distracted by a sexy federal investigator and a bottle of scotch, Donovan chases the killer through uncharted virtual worlds, where nothing is as it seems. He discovers a conspiracy that threatens U. S. security and Brooke’s life. As two superpowers face off in global confrontation, Donovan realizes that in order to stop the killer, he must break the TERMINAL CONNECTION.

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The Bewitching Of Alison Allbright

The-Bewitching-of-Alison-AllbrightAlison longs to live in a different kind of home, to have smart clothes to wear and smart parents to be seen with. To be taken on exciting holidays abroad. In fact she longs to be able to do all the things that her contemporaries at high school seem to be able to do as a matter of course….

And then the mysterious and glamorous Mrs Considine enters her life, taking Alison under her wing and slowly but surely turning all her daydreams into reality. But Alison only wants to change her life….not lose it.

An irresistible suspense novel for all ages from 10+ that has now become a modern classic.

Code Name, Erelim

code-name-erelimBrilliant and eccentric New York detective, Sherrod Colsne receives an uncommonly urgent plea from childhood friend, Sir Guy Hugo de May, Marquis of Maubrey, former head of MI6, and now president of a British security firm, Tower of London Aegis, or TOLA.

The Marquis in Jacksonville, FL for a conference with Biocon, a U. S. affiliate, and Organic Processing Technologies, Inc., a rival enterprise claiming the manufacturing processes rights to a very special CPU, in final developement at TOLA.

Long foreseen, the device, code named Erelim (according to some ancient Jewish and Christian texts, the highest rank of angels, and defenders of God’s throne), is a technology with the most profound and insidious implications, likely imperilling intelligence agencies and security organisations globally.

Following the arrival of Colsne and his assistant, Monty Weston, a seemingly inexplicable train of events occurs, wherein one of the conference attendees is shot, and Monty himself is poisoned, with almost fatal results. Colsne’s Sherlockian genius, and Monty’s lightning reactions bring to light the culprit, and prevent an international crisis.

Lady Justice and the Organ Traders

Lady-Justice-and-the-Organ-TradersA badly burned body with a fresh incision and a missing kidney leads Walt into the clandestine world of an organ trader ring that has set up shop in Kansas City. 
Walt is determined to bring to justice the bootleggers, who purchase body parts from the disadvantaged and sell them to people with means, until a relative from Maggie’s past turns up needing a kidney to survive. 


Once again, Walt discovers that very little in his world is black and white.

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Quicksilver

QuicksilverA young man named Henry Shelburne disappears in the wilderness of the California mother lode. He leaves behind a gold-flecked ore specimen, a vial of liquid mercury, and a history of chaos.

A Silicon Valley venture capitalist named Robert Shelburne hires forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and Walter Shaws to track his missing brother.

As they follow the rogue route blazed by the Shelburne family, the geologists begin to question which brother is on the hunt.

Hoping to save a life, they follow one of the ‘lost rivers’ of California into the dark history of the legendary lands, into the dark past of the Shelburne brothers.

 

Origins: Psychic Unleashed

Origins-Psychic-UnleashedNew Orleans, 1973 – The CIA uncovers two young kids with uncanny psychic ability. A renegade agent wants them for his own. When Ronnie Gilmore and Cassie Reynold fight back, things get deadly fast. 


The ability to Remote View makes Cassie and Ronnie high value assets in the Cold War contest playing out in the early 1970’s. The discovery of their power sets off a battle that ultimately means full scale war between factions within the government. 


Backs against the wall the two young psychics must face overwhelming odds to maintain their freedom and control of their own lives. When push comes to shove, Cassie Reynold proves to be the deadliest 13-year old girl you’ll ever meet.

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A Book to Die For

A-Book-To-Die-ForFor fans of David Rosenfelt, Dean Koontz, Agatha Christie and Lawrence Block’s Burglar Books.From the author of the Number One Cozy Mystery, A View to Die For, comes A Book to Die For, a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Jake Martin is not your ordinary sleuth. He’s an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dog. This time the story takes place in the foothills of Denver. Jake is accused of manslaughter and he has to prove the accident was really murder. Along the way he encounters a poaching ring and falls in love with a beautiful game warden. The characters are memorable and the plot is multi-layered. It keeps the reader guessing who dun-it until the very end.

“Richard Houston is an author who understands the keys to unlocking a reader’s interest from page one… Now, retired, he lives in Missouri where he has built a home by the water and writes books – his first outing being the Jacob Martin mystery series, of which this is the second installment (of what one hopes will be a continuing saga!)… This book, A BOOK TO DIE FOR takes up where A VIEW TO DIE FOR left off – the characters of Jake and his loyal dog Fred are on a new mission…” By Grady Harp HALL OF FAME TOP 50 REVIEWER

“I reviewed the author’s first mystery and found it a fresh take on the genre with much wry humor. The current one is a welcome follow up. It has one of those incredibly complex plots that had me scratching my head, and a large cast of supporting characters that I had to make notes to keep track of. The main character is Jake Martin, a divorced, unemployed software engineer and writer who is down on his luck, chronically short of money, drives an old car, and lives in a cabin in Colorado with a dog named Fred. Fred is amazing, but more about him later…” By Henry Simpson, Author of the Joe Costa Mysteries.

“Richard Houston has woven a fantastic tale full of mystery, love, deception, and of course- suspense. His style reminds me of the old detective novels I was addicted to as a youngster, the only difference being that in Houston’s book, I didn’t solve the mystery; I had to wait for the big reveal…” —By Heather S

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Murder By Bequest

Murder-By-BequestOn a frigid Friday afternoon in February, Eleanor Harkness shows up at the door of the “granite palace,” Sherrod Colsne’s New York townhouse. Her unexpected yet incredibly timely appearance not only knocks Colsne’s normally unflappable assistant, Monty Weston, off stride, but takes both of them down a winding path of romance, past and present, and decades-old, bitter hatred.

Though only four days actually elapse in the telling, Murder by Bequest is a story spanning over twenty-five years, three continents, and two primary cultures, and surrounding America’s foremost family of wealth, and social and political position. Bertrand Wellman Harkness, IV, director of the Harkness Foundation, and statesman serving three presidents, not quite two weeks before the “blizzard of 2006,” is brutally murdered, and grotesquely, sexually mutilated after the fact.

What follows is another murder, and another attempted, seemingly the inexorable assault of a bête noire. Only Colsne’s genius is able to run the culprit to ground, but not before Eleanor herself is slain. Deep-seated and long-nursed malice, from an emotionally dark woman, and another quite distant quarter, produced the terrible killing spree, bringing almost total dissolution to the Bertrand Wellman Harkness, IV family.

Tea Cups & Tiger Claws

Tea-Cups-and-Tiger-ClawsFirst comes the miracle and then comes the madness. The miracle is the birth of identical triplets, and the madness is all about money, of course. The year is 1916 and the rare occurrence of identical triplets turns the newborn baby girls into pint-size celebrities. Unfortunately, this small portion of fame soon leads to a much larger portion of greed, and the triplets are split up—parceled out to the highest bidders. Two of the girls go to live in a hilltop mansion. The third girl isn’t so lucky. She ends up with a shady family that lives in an abandoned work camp. That’s how their lives begin: two on top, one on the bottom, and all three in the same small town. 

Identical in appearance and with the same blood in their veins, the sisters should have also shared united destinies. Instead, those destinies are thrown to the wind, and the consequences will be extreme. “Tea Cups & Tiger Claws” explores wealth and poverty, jealousy and conceit, and is ultimately a story about deadly ambition and how it will once again throw the sisters together. It’s a journey that spans fifty years, three generations, and the perilous gulf between the rich and the poor. Along the way, you’ll marvel at the opulence of a mansion where presidents are entertained, and you’ll walk cautiously through a shanty town that harbors the forgotten. So get ready for the unexpected, and let “Tea Cups & Tiger Claws” take you down the crooked byways of this captivating family saga. 

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Undercover In High Heels

Undercover-In-High-HeelsNew York Times, USA Today, and #1 Kindle Bestselling series!

“Gemma Halliday’s Maddie Springer is like the west coast version of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum – only more stylish!”
– LG Book Club

Secret affairs, hunky gardeners, and housewives desperate enough to bare it all… welcome to Magnolia Lane, TV’s hottest new prime time show. A place where L.A. shoe designer Maddie Springer should be in fashion heaven. That is until the body of a rising young starlet is found dead on the show’s set. Now it’s up to Maddie to sift through a leading lady with a secret, an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a sexy cyber scandal, and one tabloid reporter who’ll stop at nothing to get the story of the century. Not to mention Maddie’s hot-cold relationship with the case’s familiar lead detective, Jack Ramirez. In a world where secrets, lies, and deception can earn you an Oscar, Maddie plays the role of a lifetime to catch Hollywood’s hottest killer. But if she doesn’t watch her step, Maddie’s fifteen minutes of fame just may be her last.

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Betrayal

BetrayalPresumed dead after an attack blamed on Al-Qaeda, FBI agent Odysseus Carr is running for his life with the missionary doctor who rescued him in Iran. As Odi unravels a devious plot of profound political manipulation and global consequence, the hunted becomes the hunter, and then the real terror begins….

Written by a former Green Beret and Military Counterintelligence Specialist, Betrayal is the brilliant follow-up to Tigner’s critically acclaimed Coercion.

“Well-paced action, appealing characters and snappy writing.”
—Kirkus Reviews.

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The Devils’ Cradle

The-Devil's-CradleOn Australia’s island state, more than one species of Tasmanian Devil exists…

Beneath the surface of Nina Holt’s perfect marriage lurks a life of terror inflicted upon her by her politically powerful husband Michael and his brother Greg, a sadistic detective. For over a decade they have managed to keep Nina imprisoned, using her to satisfy their every whim.

Worse still, the only light in her life—her 9-year-old son, Sam—considers Michael a hero. When Sam imitates Michael’s violence by lashing out at her, Nina knows it’s time for both of them to escape before Sam truly turns into the monster Michael is grooming him to become.

After crashing her car in her haste to escape, kind motorist Case Herder offers her help. Unaware that he has his own plans for her, Nina accepts, igniting a deadly game of cat and mouse as they flee across Tasmania with Sam.

As Michael and Greg relentlessly hunt them down to Cradle Mountain, Nina finds herself with nowhere left to run. Cornered, she has no choice but to face evil head-on.

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