July Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in July and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

VR Barkowski - A Twist of Hate (Five Star/Cengage) June 17, 2015

www.vrbarkowski.com

When the Cézanne his parents lend a local museum is replaced with a forgery, former homicide inspector turned security consultant Del Miller insists the museum's director call in the FBI. The painting, smuggled out of Nazi-occupied France along with Del's then-infant father, is not only priceless, it holds great sentimental value.
Soon, the museum director is dead, and a handwritten note in which he admits complicity in the theft arrives at a local news station. Then come allegations that Del's grandfather—a French Resistance hero who died at the hands of the Nazis—stole the missing masterpiece from a Paris gallery during the war. 

After the grandson of the long-deceased gallery owner comes forward to claim the Cézanne, he is found shot to death, and Del's father is implicated in both a conspiracy to hide the painting and murder. Del, now at a crossroads, sets out to uncover the truth.

From present-day San Francisco to war-torn France and Nazi death camps, A TWIST OF HATE is a story of family honor as Del seeks answers about the grandfather he never knew, the father he idolizes, and the secrets behind a missing painting that lay buried deep within his family's past.

Mark Leggatt - Names of the Dead (Fledgling Press) July 26, 2015

www.markleggatt.com 

Connor Montrose is running for his life. All that he held dear has been ripped away. Every Western intelligence agency and all the police forces of Europe are looking for him, with orders to shoot on sight. The only man who can prove his innocence, is the man that most wants him dead. 

Only one woman, a Mossad sleeper in Paris, will stand by his side. With her help, he must now turn and fight. His journey of evasion and revenge take him from hidden Holocaust bank vaults in Zurich, to the stinking sewers of Paris and dust-choked souks of Morocco. Finally, in the back streets of Tehran, under the gaze of the Ayatollahs, he has the chance to end it, as it began. In blood.

Jeffrey Westhoff - The Boy Who Knew Too Much (Intrigue Publishing) June 1, 2015

www.jeffreywesthoff.com

While on a school trip to Europe, Milwaukee teenager Brian Parker hopes for just a taste of the glamour and excitement of his favorite spy novels. Brian gets way more than a taste, though, when he stumbles across a wounded spy in a Lucerne alley.

The man’s dying words catapult Brian into a desperate chase across the continent. America’s latest super weapon is at stake, and everyone from a rogue CIA officer to a sadistic criminal mastermind is after it – and Brian. New enemies emerge at every turn, but Brian soon finds a welcome ally in Larissa, a beautiful French girl who loves the Ramones and is handy with a blast of pepper spray. 

Brian faces a deadly path, but reading all those spy novels has taught him a few tricks of the trade. They just might save his life.

June Debut Authors

It's the first Thursday in June and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

Christine Carbo - The Wild Inside (Atria Books/S&S) June 16, 2015

christinecarbo.com

A haunting crime novel set in Glacier National Park about a man who finds himself at odds with the dark heart of the wild—and the even darker heart of human nature.

It was a clear night in Glacier National Park. Fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping beneath the rugged peaks and starlit skies when something unimaginable happened: a grizzly bear attacked Ted’s father and dragged him to his death.

Now, twenty years later, as Special Agent for the Department of the Interior, Ted gets called back to investigate a crime that mirrors the horror of that night. Except this time, the victim was tied to a tree before the mauling. Ted teams up with one of the park officers—a man named Monty, whose pleasant exterior masks an all-too-vivid knowledge of the hazardous terrain surrounding them. Residents of the area turn out to be suspicious of outsiders and less than forthcoming. Their intimate connection to the wild forces them to confront nature, and their fellow man, with equal measures of reverence and ruthlessness.

As the case progresses with no clear answers, more than human life is at stake—including that of the majestic creature responsible for the attack. Ted’s search for the truth ends up leading him deeper into the wilderness than he ever imagined, on the trail of a killer, until he reaches a shocking and unexpected personal conclusion.  

Alex Dolan - The Euthanist (Diversion Books) June 2, 2015 www.alexdolan.com

A young woman helps to end the lives of people with terminal diseases. But when she helps the wrong person, she will be roped into a plot to gain vengeance on behalf of dozens, and the last life she ends may be her own.

They know her as Kali. She is there to see them off into the afterlife with kindness, with efficiency, and with two needles. She’s been a part of the right-to-die movement for years, an integral member, complicit in the deaths of twenty-seven men and women, all suffering from terminal illnesses.

And she just helped the wrong patient.

Soon Kali is drawn into a mesmerizing game of cat-and-mouse with two ruthless predators—one behind bars, one free—who hold the secrets that could bring comfort to the families of their victims. This powerful journey towards grace and towards peace will force both Leland and Kali to question everything they believe to be true and just.

Eileen Magill - (Oak Tree Press) June 17, 2015
www.eileenmagill.com

A young widow...

Cindy is reeling from the loss of her husband, suddenly a single mother of two children and the sole caretaker for her aging aunt. She finds the perfect house to start anew.

A house with a past...

A rundown house in the Silicon Valley suburbs needs a lot of work, but Cindy is willing to take it on to get her dream house. Disclosure documents indicate that someone had died in the house, but they don't tell the whole story of the house's evil past.

A call for help from beyond the grave...

Cindy's dreams are invaded by a woman who shows Cindy the horrible murders that had taken place in the house. Her message to Cindy: Your family is next. When repairs on the house uncover the missing murder weapon, Cindy begins to believe that the strange woman is something more than just a dream. Using her journalism skills to research the property, the dark past of the house is revealed: a series of murders starting when the house was built more than 40 years earlier. But her meddling into the history awakens a killer's need to keep the past quiet, and Cindy is thrust into a struggle to find the killer before she and her family become the next victims.

May Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in May and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

John A Connell - Ruins of War  (Berkley/Penguin) May 5, 2015
http://johnaconnell.com

“A thrilling hunt…gripping and gruesome.” —James Becker, bestselling author of The Lost Testament 

In the winter of 1945, seven months after the Nazi defeat, Munich is in ruins. Mason Collins—former Chicago police detective, U.S. soldier, and prisoner-of-war—is now Chief Warrant Officer of the American Zone of Occupation. It’s his job to enforce the law in a place where order has been obliterated. And his job just became much more dangerous. 

A killer is stalking the devastated city—one who has knowledge of human anatomy, enacts mysterious rituals with his prey, and seems to pick victims at random. Relying on his wit and instincts, Mason must venture into dangerous places that put his own life at risk: from interrogation rooms with unrepentant Nazi war criminals to penetrating the U.S. Army’s own black market.

But what Mason doesn’t know is that the killer he’s chasing is stalking him as well…

Stu Strumwasser - The Organ Broker: A Novel (Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing) May 2015

www.theorganbroker.com

Every day twenty Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. A small portion take “transplant tourism” trips to third-world countries where they buy life-saving replacement body parts from organ brokers like New York Jack. 

This book is the incredible story of how he meets the son he never knew he had and then finds himself caught between a $2 million commission and his desire to avoid participating in a string of murders. He races to South Africa and Brazil, staying just a step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, while he searches for one small act of redemption.