Winner Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
Caitlin Strong wages her own personal war on drugs against the true power behind the illicit opioid trade in Strong from the Heart, the blistering and relentless 11th installment in Jon Land's award-winning series.
The drug crisis hits home for fifth generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong when the son of her outlaw lover Cort Wesley Masters nearly dies from an opioid overdose. On top of that, she’s dealing with the inexplicable tragedy of a small Texas town where all the residents died in a single night.
When Caitlin realizes that these two pursuits are intrinsically connected, she finds herself following a trail that will take her to the truth behind the crisis that claimed 75,000 lives last year. Just in time, since the same force that has taken over the opiate trade has even more deadly intentions in mind, specifically the murder of tens of millions in pursuit of their even more nefarious goals.
The power base she’s up against—comprised of politicians and Big Pharma, along with corrupt doctors and drug distributors—has successfully beaten back all threats in the past. But they’ve never had to deal with the likes of Caitlin Strong before and have no idea what’s in store when the guns of Texas come calling.
In the years since she had the twins, CIA Agent Isabella Bendel, never imagined having to think the worst. Now she was living it. After the loss of her husband, she accepts a promotion to Chief Supervisor—a much less dangerous position than what she's accustomed to—so she can raise her two children without fear of leaving her children without parents. But any illusions of safety are shattered when, while on her Sunday morning jog in a Washington, DC park, Isabella survives a brutal assassination attempt. Someone was gunning for her, and gunning hard. While interrogating the assassin, she learns that armed men invaded her home and took that which is nearest and dearest to her heart, her twins and her mom. With the window of time to find her family alive and safe shortening, Isabella needs information fast. As she searches for her family, she discovers vague chatter about a mover and shaker in Russia planning an attack on American soil.
It's 1941, and the chill of something evil is spreading around the world like a black plague. Suspicion and fear have replaced the trust of innocence of humankind. The news of unheard-of violence and brutality presses heavily on the hearts of mankind. What is tomorrow going to look like? What has happened to the world as we once knew it? World War II begins its escalation, extending its chaos in all directions, including the outer shores of America, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Annie Elizabeth Jordan (known to most as Cricket) can't make any sense of the turbulence that is swirling around her life. This thing called war, newspapers headlines that are hidden from her, the heartache, the fears of loved ones all around her are very disturbing, and no one seems to want to explain it all to her. She is looking forward to her annual visit with her grandparents, who live in the Northwestern United States.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
A murdered source. A board room power play. Reporting this story may prove fatal.
Investigative reporter Andrea Kellner is under fire. After she inherits a media company from her husband, a hostile board member hires an efficiency consultant to force her out. Turning a blind eye to the power struggle, she throws herself into her next story only to find her key source dying in her home with an X slashed across her mouth.
While even Andrea thinks the victim's corrupt ex-husband is the likely culprit, a second murder with a similar M.O. hints at a much larger scheme.
Two strong, successful women are dead, their only connections are a divorce attorney and ex-husbands with an ugly past. Did speaking out get them killed?
Can Andrea expose a murderer in her midst before the killer takes another victim?
Lies of Men is the third thrilling novel in the Andrea Kellner mystery series. If you like complex plots and smart, ballsy, crime-solving women, you’ll love Dana Killion’s page-turning series.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
A girl is dead. A boy is locked up. Can Debbie Bradley discover the truth before more lives are lost...maybe even her own?
A series of deadly shootings. An outbreak of stolen cars. When journalist Debbie Bradley returns home to St. Louis, the summer crime wave has started. And she's in the center: A witness, a reporter, a target.
Debbie's reasons for leaving behind her promising career in Washington D.C. were complicated. Her mother, a prominent lawyer, was diagnosed with cancer. Her engagement was cooling. When she got offered a job in St. Louis that she hadn't been looking for, Debbie recognized an opportunity. Or an escape.
But she didn't expect to come home and see a girl die. Debbie never planned to investigate a boy behind bars. And she didn't anticipate colliding with hostile cops and wary politicians.As her work gains attention, Debbie gathers enemies. Will her assignment to cover the St. Louis crime beat be her last?
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
On the eve of an international G7 Summit, event coordinator Mattie Maguire discovers that the venue, a century-old estate close to Asheville, NC, is more than simply a picturesque setting. It is also the center of political conspiracies involving a ruthless Russian spy ring that will stop at nothing to steal the massive fortune they believe to be hidden there. The search intensifies and a rogue Russian agent attacks Mattie’s grandmother, still living on the estate. She hovers in a coma, barely clinging to life.
As Mattie struggles to protect her family and ensure a safe event for the most important leaders in the world, her discovery of a fraudulent heir to the estate puts her own life in danger as well. But when her eighty-five-year-old grandfather is kidnapped and held at gunpoint, her path becomes clear. Despite her fear, she must locate the only person who has the information the Russians seek—the estate’s rightful heir, hidden away for decades after the murder of his father. But will the true owner’s return to his childhood home put his life in danger, too?
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
He tried to escape his past, but his past came with him.
He came to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and never left. But when a game of high stakes poker turns into a boxing match, Massimo "Max" Rossi, the son of mob "fixer" Boston Rossi, winds up with more than he bargained for. All eyes turn to him when the police find his opponent, a hitman from Chicago, dead. And if that isn't bad enough, his only alibi--the dead man's girlfriend--is missing.
Now, if the cops don't get him, the mob will!
Rossi is in the struggle of his life, where every turn brings him closer to an untimely end. He's got to find the girlfriend before his time runs out. But in fledgling Las Vegas, time is an abstract concept, and people can hide almost anywhere. Rossi came to Vegas to escape his past, but his past came with him.Set in Las Vegas of the 1950s, Maximum Rossi takes the reader on a thrilling crime noir ride, reminiscent of tales penned by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Rossi takes his place as a true hard-boiled detective. A man who doesn't take no for an answer, and isn't about to let himself get pushed around by anyone...especially a dame.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
A man wakes up in present-day Alaskan wilderness with no idea who he is, nothing on him save an empty journal with the date 1898 and a mirror. He sees another man hunting nearby, astounded that they look exactly alike except for his own beard. After following this other man home, he witnesses a wife and child that brings forth a rush of memories of his own wife and child, except he’s certain they do not exist in modern times—but from his life in the late 1800s.
After recalling his name is Wyatt, he worms his way into his doppelganger Travis Barlow’s life. Memories become unearthed the more time he spends, making him believe that he’d been frozen after coming to Alaska during the Gold Rush and that Travis is his great-great grandson. Wyatt is certain gold still exists in the area and finding it with Travis will ingratiate himself to the family, especially with Travis’s wife Callie, once Wyatt falls in love. This turns into a dangerous obsession affecting the Barlows and everyone in their small town, since Wyatt can’t be tamed until he also discovers the meaning of why he was able to be preserved on ice for over a century.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense The 2020 Best Book Awards
Abandoned at a hospital when she was only three years old, Aubrey Ross grew up as a ward of the state, passed from one foster family to the next. Having endured years of abuse and neglect, she’s become hardened to the world around her.
She’s flirted with depression and anxiety, and she’s haunted by premonitions. When a strange man approaches Aubrey with information about her past, she knows her life is about to change. Inside the envelope is the deed to a house in Ohio—her ancestral home.
When Aubrey arrives in Rossdale, the town named after her family, she immediately experiences situations she cannot explain. She hears voices, sees apparitions, and has vivid visions of tragedies she can scarcely comprehend. Aubrey comes to realize she is reliving events which have happened to those who came before her.
