Tag: Thriller Suspense

  • THE WOLF HUNTER: DESOLATION: Mack Murphy Series Book 1 by Terrence O’Malia – Military Thrillers, War & Military Action, Thriller & Suspense

     

    In The Wolf Hunter: Desolation, Book One of Terrence O’Malia’s Mack Murphy series, staff sergeant Mack Murphy is convinced there are three types of people: sheep, wolves, and hunters.

    The sweet, innocent, dutiful sheep are blissfully unaware of the deadly wolves that could strike at any time. But thankfully, the hunters protect the sheep and even seek out the wolves to prevent their attacks on the flock. Mack defines himself steadfastly as a wolf hunter. He loves his family with all his heart and would do anything to protect them.

    Mack’s protective nature continues into his military life where he is part of a team based in the mountains of Afghanistan. Just as it is with his family, he pledges his full allegiance to his team.

    We follow Mack Murphy as his team engages in battle, though his heart is back home where his wife Renee is on maternity leave from her US agent duties. Mack beams with passion for her, and his heart is full of pride for his newborn twin daughters, but he worries he may not see them again. This battle could be his last. He fights hard and smart but, after witnessing his best friend killed in action, Mack’s despair is matched only by his feelings of guilt for being relieved the bullet missed him.

    Tragedy continues to hover on Mack’s horizon. An emergency Red Cross phone call changes his life forever and now the wolves are after his most beloved “sheep”—his wife and children.

    Every step along Mack’s military flight home tests his patience, and when he finally arrives, he finds his perfect life has forever been changed. There had been a time when love conquered all. Now that love is shattered by unknown villains, and he vows to find them and bring them to justice.

    Mack, who once clung to his brilliant, joyful life, no longer fears his own death. Nothing can break his commitment to find justice. He is The Wolf Hunter.

    Terrence O’Malia plunges us into a thrill ride from start to finish. The wolves are prowling, the sheep are helpless, and Mack Murphy, a beleaguered marine with anger issues, is the hunter who vows to end the violence once and for all.

    O’Malia, a doctor and retired marine himself, vividly captures the complex life-threatening situations faced by his characters with an incredible range of emotions. The best and worst of human nature is laid bare throughout this hard-to-put-down story. Just like life itself, what will happen next to the wolves, the sheep, and the Hunter is unpredictable, with consequences that will be irrevocable.

    Both hope and fear drive the reader to keep turning pages as they accompany The Wolf Hunter on his gripping journey.

     

  • THE OTHER MURDER by Kevin G. Chapman – Murder Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Police Procedural

     

    blue and gold badge recognizing The Other Murder by Kevin G Chapman for winning the 2023 Clue grand prizeIn The Other Murder by Kevin G. Chapman, two ambitious journalists find themselves at the knife’s edge as they seek to uncover the entire truth of a gruesome double homicide.

    “An error does not become truth because of multiplied propaganda, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” –Mahatma Gandhi

    Hannah, a journalist with the American Cable News network, is pulled away from a date by her editor to cover the breaking news of a shooting in Washington Square Park. The victim is Angelica Monroe, a White girl from Westchester County and a sophomore at NYU. She was shot at a close range, as shown by the dark hole above her left eye.

    The murder becomes much more mysterious and complicated when Paulo, a reporter for a small community newspaper, makes a connection between Angelica’s murder and the shooting of a Latino teen, Javier Estrada, on the other side of the park on the same night.

    Two detectives, Mariana and Dru, investigate the crimes and also connect Javier to the Monroe crime scene. A bag containing his Air Jordans was found near Angelica’s body. The investigators believe that Monroe may have had a dangerous item in her possession and that she may have involved herself in a highly unlikely vice, which brought her into the park and put her in harm’s way. By this time, Hannah and her network had built up Angelica as the tragic innocent victim of urban crime. When Paulo and Hannah team up, the true facts deviate farther and farther from the original narrative.

    In this thrilling novel, the hunt for truth is challenged at every turn by confusion, desperation, and near-death experiences. The ‘system’ becomes increasingly complex and unpredictable, as stern directives are issued from the top, to which the investigators and the journalists are expected to adhere – even if it restricts their search. This obfuscation frustrates the investigators and prompts deep reflection in readers, as it mirrors the growing real-world indifference to truth, the cynical espousing of lies, and the fake news that popular newsrooms today have boldly proclaimed.

    These themes of truth in the face of powerful deception become immense and haunting through the story of The Other Murder.

    Readers will be struck by the inhumane and high-tension crime scene in the first chapter, as well as the accelerated pace at which Paulo and Hannah swing into action. The plot is chilling but heroic and boils down to one simple conclusion: Facts cannot be hidden forever, regardless of the backlash or denial against them.

    Chapman has crafted a must-read novel through a proficient mixture of police procedural, thriller, and mystery. The Other Murder is undoubtedly a tale that will draw a reader in from the first page to the last. Chapman’s characters are a beautiful blend of various personalities, with their natural reactions to distress and pressure giving life and a satisfying richness to this tale.

     

     

    5 Star Best Book Chanticleer Reviews round silver sticker

  • SOLAR REBOOT by Matthew D. Hunt – Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction, Action/Thriller, Dystopian Fiction

    SOLAR REBOOT by Matthew D. Hunt – Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction, Action/Thriller, Dystopian Fiction

    There’s a lot about life on earth that we take for granted. Most of us go about our daily lives, but what would happen if the sun shot out a gigantic solar flare. Would we survive? What would happen to us?

    In Solar Reboot, a giant solar flare destroys the world’s power grids, disrupts the Internet, television, and radio communication, and is an all-around nightmare for air traffic controllers. Add tidal waves and gigantic storms to the mix, and it becomes evident that life on earth will change profoundly.

    Alex Robinson, his wife Cameron, and daughter Piper get to find out how tough it will become. On a trip to New York City, Alex and Piper expect to be home in Seattle in a few days. For Alex, a park ranger, flying back will be a relief from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. But when the sky turns purple, power disappears. Internet and broadcast communication all but ceases, and there are multiple reports of planes crashing to earth all over the planet, Alex quickly discovers the only way he’ll be able to return home will be to drive. It turns out that even driving is its own form of hell.

    Meanwhile, Cameron in Seattle is also experiencing the effects of the solar flare. An ER nurse with military experience, she’s urged by her husband to pack up and leave the city with as much food and medical supplies as possible. She has indulged Alex’s survivalist leanings with some skepticism, but as tension mounts at home, she wonders if he may not have been right. Finally, she decides to leave for their well-stocked mountain cabin, accompanied by her older next-door neighbor, Bettie, who decides that life in the mountains might be safer than dealing with a frightened, angry citizenry at home.

    Life is difficult for both halves of the separated Robinson family. There is no easy way to find a way home for Alex and Piper. Driving becomes undependable. Picking up rides, finding horses, and even back-packing become the only means they have of completing their journey. However, that doesn’t help when blinding rainstorms wash away roads, bridges, and, on more than one occasion, the vehicles they’re using. If that weren’t bad enough, other people whose lives have been disrupted often turn ugly as they forage for food and supplies, hunker down with weapons to protect their hoards and homes.

    Of equal importance is Piper’s diabetic condition. It’s not a problem in society as it once was, but what happens when the insulin she and her father carry runs out and pharmacies are virtually all closed?

    Cameron’s trip to their mountain cabin community might seem to offer her a more comfortable life. Don’t count on it. When she and Bettie reach the mountains, they find contentious, sometimes dangerous people. Some would love to invade their community and others inside their boundaries, intent on doing things their own way. Some even kill to get what they want. She becomes the de facto leader in the compound and forced to make difficult decisions of life and death.

    Hunt has delivered a solid punch to our collective solar plexus. The pressure doesn’t let up as this separated family use their physical and mental resources to reunite, each half fighting against the elements and their fellow human beings to survive until they can be together. While some might consider this a science fiction novel, it is grounded in life as we know it makes it more of a book on survival. Solar Reboot is a testimony to the human spirit under virtually impossible conditions, and a tribute to people’s ability to survive under the most challenging conditions.

    Solar Reboot won First Place in the 2018 CIBAs for Science Fiction novels.

  • VANOPS: The LOST POWER by Avanti Centrae – Crime Mystery, High-Stakes Thriller, International Thriller & Suspense

    VANOPS: The LOST POWER by Avanti Centrae – Crime Mystery, High-Stakes Thriller, International Thriller & Suspense

    Paranormal Grand Prize Award Badge for VanOps The Lost PowerAvanti Centrae takes readers on an action-packed gallop around the globe in her debut award-winning novel, VanOps: The Lost Power.

    Maddy Marshall, 31-year-old app designer and aikido instructor, and her twin brother, Will, have been summoned to their father’s Napa Valley winery. He has something important he needs to tell them.

    The estranged twins haven’t seen each other in a while. Will, now in Brazil and newly married, has brought his wife Maria with him. As Will and Maddy catch up in the driveway, a shot rings out. They rush into the house to find their father and Maria have been shot. Maria is dead. Their father clings to life long enough to pass along a family secret. They witness a blond man racing away from the winery in a black BMW.

    Will and Maddy are descendants of the Argones bloodline and related to the current king of Spain, and now they must seek out a woman, a lawyer whom their father trusted, to receive the first clue in a quest to fulfill their birthright.

    On their way to the lawyer’s office, Will and Maddy are ambushed by the same blond man they’re sure murdered their father and Maria. After a short chase, they evade him when his car crashes through a guardrail, plummets to the bottom of a ravine and bursts into flame. Will and Maddy waste no time hightailing it to the lawyer’s office, relieved to have the killer off their trail.

    The lawyer has a package for each of them, filled with gold, diamonds, cash, and a letter. The letter tells them they are to use the money to fund their quest, which begins in Spain, where their great uncle, the king, will give them their first clue. They are to find an ancient relic of great power that has been safeguarded by their family for centuries. They must not only unravel the clues as to its location but must also pass a series of tests along the way designed to show they are worthy of possessing so much power.

    As Maddy glances out the window, she is shocked to see the blond sniper charging the stairs of the lawyer’s office. They hastily escape out the back door. How did he get a car? How did he track them? Is his interest in them somehow linked to the relic? And how would he even know of its existence?

    Will and Maddy need a place to hide out, someplace safe where they can rest and think. They destroy their cell phones just in case that’s how they’ve been tracked and decide to head to Lake Tahoe and their old childhood home. While in Tahoe, they bump into an old friend from high school, Bear Thorenson. Bear used to have a crush on Maddy back in the day, though she never encouraged his affection. He is now a Marine and filled out quite a bit. They soon find out he’s also a history buff. Will and Maddy confide in him about the mysterious man on their tail. Bear agrees to accompany them to offer protection. And the trio is soon off for Spain.

    Avanti Centrae has a knack for keeping the action moving and keeping her characters in peril. The stakes are high, and there’s no telling what’s around the next corner. If you fall in love with the characters, this is the first in a series so you will be able to get your next fix in the near future.

    Van Ops: The Lost Power won Grand Prize in the 2017 CIBAs for Paranormal novels.

     

     

     

     

  • SLAVE to FORTUNE by D.J. Munro – YA Historical Fiction, Sea Adventures Fiction, Thriller & Suspense

    SLAVE to FORTUNE by D.J. Munro – YA Historical Fiction, Sea Adventures Fiction, Thriller & Suspense

    Dante Rossetti Grand Prize Badge for Slave to FortuneAt the tender age fourteen, Thomas Cheke is kidnapped in the dead of night by Barbary pirates from his home on the Isle of Wight. His widowed mother and sister are left behind, but Tom doesn’t know if they survive the surprise attack. During the next six years, his life will take more twists and turns than he could ever have imagined, and the resulting story is one of the most fascinating ever put to page.

    Tom addresses the reader directly, and this lends a heightened sense of immediacy and excitement to an already gripping tale. He is the most sympathetic of characters, one with the deck stacked against him, though he uses his innate intelligence and wits most effectively. After the initial night when he fell “into the hands of the Turk,” an event English schoolchildren had been taught to fear, Tom is imprisoned on a corsair ship bound for Algiers where he knows he will be sold as a slave.

    Keenly observant and eager to make the best of his situation, Tom helps another lad on the boat who works in the kitchen, and along the way learns much about the running of the ship, the men aboard, prisoners and crew alike, and does what he can to comfort two other children who were also kidnapped from the Isle of Wight. Why these three youngsters were targeted by the pirates is at the heart of an intricate mystery that builds throughout the book.  Meanwhile, day to day life on the boat, seen through Tom’s eyes, is fascinating, especially when the crew chases a Spanish galleon laden with silver bullion and battle ensues.

    Once in Algiers, Tom maintains his composure while his ankle is chained and manacled and he is sold to Ibrahim Ali, the Grand Treasurer of the city. Many surprises await Tom as he joins the household, including his growing admiration for his Master, a kind and erudite man who arranges for his servant’s learning Arabic and intense study of the Koran. As a trusted servant, Tom runs errands for Ibrahim in cosmopolitan Algiers, the sights and sounds of which are fully brought to life through Munro’s sumptuous and masterful prose.  Tom’s time on the corsair ship provided him with information that will prove very useful in his master’s solving a dire financial issue that involves the weakening value of coinage in Algiers.

    Key events upend his existence once more, and he finds himself on a ship headed to Malta with a new mentor in Sir Edward Hamilton, a Christian brother and knight of the Order of St. John. With his ankle chain newly removed, Tom adjusts to life as a free man and assists Edward in solving an elaborate cipher, a lengthy message coded with the suits of playing cards. This introduces a riveting subplot concerning Cardinal Richelieu and the attempted assassinations of the Duke of Mantua and the Duke of Buckingham.  Computer programmers, as well as anyone interested in code breaking, will find this section of the book enthralling. Warning the intended victims that their lives are in danger requires further travels, including a trip to Venice.

    You won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough! Do Tom and Edward prevent the assassinations? Does Tom ever set foot on English soil again? What will become of the young man, twenty years of age at the book’s conclusion, who has lived in Ottoman and Christian worlds as a slave and a free man? Adults and sophisticated young adult readers will find this book exquisitely captivating.

    Anyone who’s read and loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s historic adventure, Kidnapped, will no doubt also love Slave to Fortune. The basis of D.J. Munro’s thrilling adventure, Slave to Fortune, is purportedly based on an original memoir by Thomas Cheke, an Englishman who lived during the seventeenth century. In the Endnote, D.J. Munro shares the research he undertook to confirm the events in Tom’s memoir and notes, “I hope that I have done it justice.”  The answer, of course, is a resounding, “YES!”

    Slave to Fortune won the 2017 CIBA Grand Prize in the Dante Rossetti Awards and took First Place in the 2017 CIBA Chaucer Awards for Early Historical Fiction.

  • STORMFRONT by James Tacy Cozad – Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Domestic Terrorism

    STORMFRONT by James Tacy Cozad – Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Domestic Terrorism

    The billionaire and founder of Gallagher Pharmaceuticals is a bad man. His stratagem: targeted biological warfare on specific groups of people worldwide. His followers, the chosen precious few, will be immune and survive. If the plan succeeds, Gallagher will be their leader. Can this supremacist leader compel his followers to execute an evil plan of worldwide, biological murder?

    Meet a retired serviceman and current rancher Finn Dalton. After the trauma he experienced in his war-time service, all he yearns for now is a peaceful life, one where he can hunt rabbits and other game animals with his buddy and fellow veteran, Sam, and their beloved band of dogs. And maybe marry his girlfriend, Kiera Utsi. This peaceful existence is threatened one day during a hunt when Finn and Sam discover a mutilated corpse out in the New Mexican desert. Needless to say, Finn believes it to be a very suspicious death. The men alert authorities, but Finn is far from satisfied with the direction or progression of the investigation.

    Tension and danger mount when Finn and Kiera follow perilous leads down trails fraught with unbelievable risk, uncovering more and more about the murder and how it is connected with Gallagher Pharmaceuticals. Their questions always lead back to the man in charge: Gordon Gallagher. But who will believe their theories and accusations? And now someone is trying to kill them.

    The clock is ticking as to when the deadly virus will be let loose, and neither Finn nor Keira knows if they will be immune. Moreover, they’re not sure who they can confide in or join forces with. As the crisis builds, they risk fatal mistakes. Will they have to infiltrate the compound itself? Stormfront is approaching. And time is running out.

    Author, James Tacy Cozad knows the territory in which his characters live, and his descriptions of the setting vividly add to the dynamic of the fast-paced plot. His knowledge of the beautiful and dangerous scenery combined with a well-researched understanding of weaponry brings to life a character that is “James Bond-like” in scope and capabilities, making this a rather fun, if not frightening, read.

    James Tacy Cozad won 1st Place in the 2017 CIBAs for Global Thrillers category for Stormfront.

  • CORONADO’S TRAIL by Carl and Jane Bock – Mystery, Thriller/Suspense, Literary

    CORONADO’S TRAIL by Carl and Jane Bock – Mystery, Thriller/Suspense, Literary

    M&M Grand Prize Winner Badge for CORONADO'S TRAIL by Carl and Jane BockAn ill-fated Spanish expedition in 1541 plays into present-day concerns about preserving Santa Cruz County’s (Arizona) heritage and environment. Along with an engaging yarn, Jane and Carl Bock offer the reader food for thought by presenting a microcosmic picture of the mindless destruction of time-honored customs, traditions, and mores in the pursuit of money and power.

    When deputy sheriff Calvin Creede of the Sonoita substation in Santa Cruz County receives a call from Maria Obregon, the widow of Calvin’s best friend, neither suspect where the call will lead.

    Maria has discovered the partially exposed remains of an old pickup in the San Carlos Wash, an arroyo near her goat farm on the 40,000 acres, Rocking M cattle ranch. The vehicle had not been visible before. Nothing new there, as frequent flooding reveals items previously buried in the sand. But this seems different because Maria’s dog, Boomer, is behaving as if there’s something still hidden inside the cab.

    Calvin’s investigation of the find, from running its license plate, unearthing it, and solving a 1995 missing person case, to determining that the driver had been murdered, has a domino effect. In winnowing facts from legend and gossip, he also unearths lifelong grudges, rivalries, and broken hearts that continue to impact families in the community.

    Concurrent with the murder investigation, Calvin must address the lawless behaviors of radical environmentalists, drug and human traffickers, and unethical antiquities hunters, which all, in varying ways, relate to the decades’ old murder. If this weren’t enough to sift through, he also must deal with his feelings for Maria, to whom he’s pretty sure he’s just become engaged.

    Coronado’s Trail contains multiple levels of storytelling and subplots, and in the Bock’s skillfully crafted narrative where everything fits like an intricate puzzle. In addition to a complex and compelling plot, the authors’ use of imagery adds a visceral dimension to the mood and tone that is sure to transport readers to experience the mountains shimmering in the heat, the rumble of thunder in the distance, the cooling monsoon rains… you get the picture. By the time the last page is turned and the novel complete, a kinship to Arizona’s high desert will be in your bones. All this to say, after vicariously traveling Coronado’s Trail, you may wish to walk it for yourselves.

    Coronado’s Trail took home the M&M Grand Prize for Mysteries in the 2017 CIBAs.

     

     

  • DEADLY PROOF: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, Book 4 by M. Louisa Locke – Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller/Suspense

    DEADLY PROOF: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, Book 4 by M. Louisa Locke – Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller/Suspense

    Annie Fuller, a part-time clairvoyant/landlady, is determined to improve her life. As the daughter of a financial investor, Annie knows a great deal about bookkeeping and investments. Putting her knowledge to good use with her fledgling accounting business, the pretty widow seems on-track again since moving to San Francisco, opening her home to boarders, and transitioning from her former job as the fortune-telling Madame Sibyl.

    Having agreed to marry attorney Nate Dawson, she can almost touch the happiness she deserves after her disastrous first marriage, but when Nate is hired to defend a woman accused of murdering her boss, Annie turns private investigator in an attempt to help her fiancé with his first solo criminal case. At first, Nate’s biggest obstacle is the client herself, Florence Sullivan, who refuses to even speak to him for several days. Soon the issue becomes the sheer number of suspects who wanted Joshua Rashers, the ruthless owner of a printing company, dead. But as Annie and Nate’s sister Laura begin to dig deeper into the lives of Rasher’s family and employees, they will soon face deadly dangers of their own.

    Strong personas form the nexus of this series, which features many of the same characters in both novels and novellas. Most of the characters have elaborate backstories that really “flesh out” the novel’s plot, but a familiarity with the previous stories isn’t a necessity for the reader. Readers will fall in love with Annie’s intelligence, Laura’s tenacity, Nate’s devotion, and Florence’s fortitude. Throw in the eclectic boarders and one feisty Boston Terrier, an unforgettable cast emerges that readers will adore.

    Though the dynamics between characters is interesting, the real value of the novel lies within its portrayal of the struggle for women in the late nineteenth century. Set in the 1880s, the events of the novel aren’t far removed from the Civil War that ravaged the country, and while that war was fought for the equality of all men, subjugation of women would continue for another fifty years. And though the plot makes use of actual suffragette Emily Pitts Stevens, the novel covers much more than women’s suffrage. It explores all aspects of prejudice against women, including the rights of female workers and business owners as well as a woman’s place in the marriage relationship. From Annie’s financial independence to Laura’s dream to become a lawyer, the women fight for a place in a literal man’s world. Even Annie’s upcoming nuptials bring questions of propriety over personal enjoyment, and every woman in the novel–married or single–feels the bite of mental bondage in some way and none more than Florence who is being tried in the media based in part because of the sensationalism of her gender.

    Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, Book 4 won First Place in the 2017 M&M Awards.

  • Disowned – The Red-Heeled Rebels Series Novel One by Tikiri – Women’s Adventure, Thriller/Suspense, International Crime

    Disowned – The Red-Heeled Rebels Series Novel One by Tikiri – Women’s Adventure, Thriller/Suspense, International Crime

    Spanning three continents and taking on crucial issues of child marriage and human trafficking, Disowned features a brave teen heroine struggling against international criminality with nothing but her wits and grit.

    Asha, born in Tanzania, is still a child when her parents are tragically killed while on a family safari in Kenya. Within a short period of time she is transported to Goa, India, to live with relatives she has never met. Her grandmother is an angry, culture-bound crone, her aunt and cousin living, as Asha now must, under the old woman’s seemingly heartless sway.

    Not yet knowing the language or the social manners of her new homeland, Asha wears her best red shoes to school. She is beaten by the schoolmistress and taunted by classmates until she finds her saving grace—cooking. Beginning with lessons learned as a child and kitchen lore picked up from her new family, she starts her own business selling cupcakes, gaining grudging respect from classmates.

    When her grandmother decides to sell her off to an old man who already has a wife and has no qualms about claiming his new child-bride by rape, Asha realizes she must escape — from grandmother, from Goa, and indeed from this horrible marriage.

    The road is open to a new life in Canada, but there she will find she has been sold again, this time as the virtual slave of a demented old woman whose bizarre activities soon put Asha on the run again, this time with a new friend and fellow cook named Katy. The dangers are palpable, but the girls are determined to make a new life for themselves – anywhere and by any means.

    Tikiri is an entrepreneurial, adventurous self-described “recovering nomad,” and is the author of a series of Non-Fiction books in support of ambitious young women. The Rebel Journal Workbooks touch on subjects of finding your passion and making plans to reach your goal. One senses she has either personally observed or studiously researched the settings she so vividly describes – from the African veldt to the hovels of backstreet Goa.

    Tikiri’s central character, Asha, is naïve but definitely not lacking in good sense or in empathy for the suffering she sees around her. Knowing little about men, she nonetheless intuits that her prospective husband would be a brute and her life in Goa an endless grind. She knows she’s made for better things and desires to help her ailing aunt and culturally trapped cousin if she can. Tikiri’s writing is skillful and creative; her storyline never flags. As she leads from twist to turn in the well-constructed plot, her reader’s attention will stay riveted on Asha’s continually escalating challenges. Female readers (from older teens to adults) will find kinship with the girls in the story and look forward to the next installment of Asha’s adventures.

    A tale that sounds too real for comfort at times, Disowned, is the first book in the Red-Heeled Rebels series and presents a disturbing view of powerless, exploited women and girls in third-world countries through the hopeful eyes of a determined young woman trying to beat the odds.

     

  • BEYOND CONTROL by Lawrence Verigin – Eco-Thriller, Spies & Politics, Thriller/Suspense

    BEYOND CONTROL by Lawrence Verigin – Eco-Thriller, Spies & Politics, Thriller/Suspense

    Now we reap the bitter consequences of what was diabolically sown in the first two books in the award-winning, exciting Dark Seed trilogy. In author Lawrence Verigin’s third book, the agents of The Club have implemented their evil plan and drive forward in complete denial of the unintended consequences that are now Beyond Control and threaten all human life on earth. Can these perils be stopped and reversed? Nick Barnes and his team have been left discredited and seemingly powerless to vanquish the dark forces behind this ecological thriller.

    Nick Barnes finds himself victim to his own circumstances that are now also Beyond Control. At the start of this book, he struggles against convincing evidence that cleverly frames him for a serious crime, landing him in jail.

    The twisting tale turns as the enemy runs its ominous empire unchecked. There is no guarantee that Nick’s plan will work, yet as the group sets out to track the evil conspirators across the globe, tragic environmental dangers loom on the horizon. The Club follows the trail of chaos left in the wake of the enemy and are able to understand the global catastrophic events that will ensue if the evildoers cannot be stopped. However, not everyone is able to see the truth in what these few see. Denial is powerful and feels safer than the dire truth Nick and his companions offer.

    In fact, the members of the Club see the lethal dangers growing quickly because their foes’ inexcusable misuse of the science they are now wielding without understanding and without conscience. It’s up to Nick and his band to act, but their fight is against deluded fanatics, and in such fights, painful losses are inevitable. Is a final showdown with The Club something Nick’s group can win?

    Author Lawrence Verigin writes to entertain while bringing attention to socially relevant subjects. His research into agricultural science is impressive, seamlessly weaving information into the narrative of the story, giving readers a satisfying and captivating set of novels.

    Beyond Control is a fight to save the earth’s population from the seeds of devastation. It’s a thrilling portrait of our hero’s will to treasure life. However, Nick is up against a completely different worldview, and the stakes in this venture are high. Against him, greed is being led by a brutally selfish, power-hungry adversary who coldly explains his evil actions as justification being in the eye of the beholder.