Mystery
14 stories
Ricochet (Excerpt - 5 chapters) by sandrabrown_NYT
sandrabrown_NYT
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When Detective Sergeant Duncan Hatcher is summoned to the home of Judge Cato Laird in the middle of the night to investigate a fatal shooting, he knows discretion and kid-glove treatment will be key to staying in the judge’s good graces and keeping his job. It’s an open-and-shut case: Elise, the judge’s beautiful trophy wife, interrupted a burglary and killed the intruder in self-defense. Yet Duncan is suspicious of the beautiful woman’s story of innocence and his gut tells him her account of the shooting is only partially true. Determined to learn the dead man’s connection to the Lairds, Duncan investigates further but soon finds his career, and integrity, in jeopardy. Despite his suspicions, Duncan is increasingly drawn to Elise―even if she is a married woman, a proven liar, and a murder suspect. When Elise seeks Duncan out privately, he initially dismisses her incredible allegation as the manipulative lie of a guilty woman. But if she’s telling the truth, then that single fatal gunshot at her home takes on even more sinister significance, possibly involving Duncan’s nemesis, the brutal crime lord Robert Savich. And then Elise goes missing...
DEADLINE (Excerpt - 5 Chapters) by sandrabrown_NYT
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Dawson Scott is a well-respected journalist recently returned from Afghanistan. Haunted by everything he experienced, he's privately suffering from battle fatigue which is a threat to every aspect of his life. But then he gets a call from a source within the FBI. A new development has come to light in a story that began 40 years ago. It could be the BIG story of Dawson's career one in which he has a vested interest. Soon, Dawson is covering the disappearance and presumed murder of former Marine Jeremy Wesson, the biological son of the pair of terrorists who remain on the FBI's Most Wanted list. As Dawson delves into the story, he finds himself developing feelings for Wesson's ex-wife, Amelia, and her two young sons. But when Amelia's nanny turns up dead, the case takes a stunning new turn, with Dawson himself becoming a suspect. Haunted by his own demons, Dawson takes up the chase for the notorious outlaws. . .and the secret, startling truth about himself.
Mean Streak (Excerpt - 5 Chapters) by sandrabrown_NYT
sandrabrown_NYT
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Dr. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her. While police suspect Jeff of "instant divorce," Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won't even tell her his name. She's determined to escape him, and willing to take any risks necessary to survive. Unexpectedly, however, the two have a dangerous encounter with people who adhere to a code of justice all their own. At the center of the dispute is a desperate young woman whom Emory can't turn her back on, even if it means breaking the law. Wrong becomes right at the hands of the man who strikes fear, but also sparks passion. As her husband's deception is revealed, and the FBI closes in on her captor, Emory begins to wonder if the man with no name is, in fact, her rescuer from those who wish her dead - and from heartbreak.
SMASH CUT by sandrabrown_NYT
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THE PRINCIPALS Paul Wheeler. CEO of the Wheeler Enterprises empire. At age fifty-two, he’s a pillar of Atlanta society and a brilliant businessman. But Paul is out of the picture even before the opening credits — shot dead during an armed robbery. Julie Rutledge. A savvy, cultured, and attractive Southern woman, seasoned by a stint of study and romance in Paris. She owns the city’s most successful and sophisticated art gallery on Peachtree Street. She was also Paul Wheeler’s weekly companion at the hotel where he was murdered and was hand in hand with him at the time of his death. Derek Mitchell. A defense lawyer of renown. Successful, handsome, and despised by the Atlanta PD for his courtroom victories, he goes to the mat to make a case for every client – and headlines for himself. A guilty verdict is not an option. Yet he’s not entirely without a conscience, as proven when his life takes a terrible turn toward the cinematic. Creighton Wheeler. The prodigal nephew of Paul. With movie-star looks and guileless blue eyes, the twenty-eight-year-old playboy has a penchant for call girls, fast cars, and designer clothes. But his passion is movies. He studies them, quotes them…and lives them. Even those closest to Creighton can’t be sure when he exits reality and enters the fantasy world of films.
LOW PRESSURE by sandrabrown_NYT
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Bellamy Lyston was only 12 when her older sister Susan was killed on a stormy Memorial Day weekend.  Now, 18 years later, Bellamy has written a sensational, bestselling novel based on Susan's murder. Because the book was inspired by the tragic event that still pains her family, she published it under a pseudonym, but when an opportunistic reporter for a tabloid newspaper discovers that the book is based on fact, Bellamy's identity is exposed along with the family scandal. Moreover, Bellamy becomes the target of a stalker who apparently wants the truth about Susan's murder to remain hidden. In order to identify her stalker, Bellamy must confront the ghosts of her past, including Dent Carter, Susan's wayward and reckless boyfriend -- and an original suspect in the murder case. Haunted by partial memories, conflicted over her feelings for Dent, but determined to learn the truth, she won't stop until she reveals Susan's killer. That is, unless Susan's killer strikes her first...
LETHAL by sandrabrown_NYT
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When her four year old daughter informs her a sick man is in their yard, Honor Gillette rushes out to help him. But that "sick" man turns out to be Lee Coburn, the man accused of murdering seven people the night before. Dangerous, desperate, and armed, he promises Honor that she and her daughter won't be hurt as long as she does everything he asks. She has no choice but to accept him at his word. But Honor soon discovers that even those close to her can't be trusted. Coburn claims that her beloved late husband possessed something extremely valuable that places Honor and her daughter in grave danger. Coburn is there to retrieve it -- at any cost. From FBI offices in Washington, D.C., to a rundown shrimp boat in coastal Louisiana, Coburn and Honor run for their lives from the very people sworn to protect them, and unravel a web of corruption and depravity that threatens not only them, but the fabric of our society
STING (2 Chapter Excerpt) by sandrabrown_NYT
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When Shaw Kinnard encounters the incongruously elegant Jordie Bennet in a seen-better-days bayou bar, it's not love at first sight. He's there to kill her. Instead, he abducts her, eager to get hold of the $30 Million her brother has pocketed from his badly bent boss. Now they are on the run from said boss-and the FBI. On sale in hardcover, audio, and ebook August 16, 2016, wherever books are sold!
MIRROR IMAGE by sandrabrown_NYT
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The crash of a Dallas-bound jet wasn't just a tragedy to TV reporter Avery Daniels; it was an act of fate that handed her a golden opportunity to further her career. Mistaken for a glamorous, selfish woman named Carole Rutledge, the badly injured Avery would find that plastic surgery had given her Carole's face, the famous senatorial candidate Tate Rutledge for a husband, and a powerful Texas dynasty for in-laws. And as she lay helpless in the hospital, she would make a shattering discovery: Someone close to Tate planned to assassinate him. Now, to save Tate's life, Avery must live another woman's life -- and risk her own...
The Blood Price by JonEvans
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Sequel to the award-winning DARK PLACES. Paul Wood was just a tourist in Sarajevo. Then an unexpected encounter made him a desperate woman's only hope of escape. Now, to get her to safety, he must find a way through the minefield of warlords, criminals, and peacekeepers that is postwar Bosnia. Pursued by brutal gangsters, unable to leave the country legally, Paul agrees to do a job for a shadowy group of human traffickers, in exchange for safe passage. The smugglers seem friendly. The job seems harmless. But when he discovers the secrets seething beneath, the repercussions will propel him on a perilous journey around the world - from a warlord's compound in lawless Albania, through the jungles of Latin America, and towards an explosive confrontation at the extraordinary Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert... "Reading Blood Price reminded me of being a kid running down a too-steep hill, going faster and faster so that you can barely get your feet in front of you quickly enough to stop, loving every second of it. You can't stop. You don't want to stop.... I wanted to keep reading to find out what the hell happened next." - Quill & Quire "Albanian smugglers, Bosnian guerrillas and Central American drug dealers populate Evans's colorful transcontinental story of self-preservation and harebrained derring-do ... a highly readable, inventive thriller." - Publishers' Weekly "The real appeal of Evans' hero, Paul Wood (who first appeared in the nail-biter Dark Places) is ... an undercurrent of wry humor that should make readers care about what happens to this fully fleshed hero. [...] A fantastic read." - Booklist "Despite its sometimes disconcerting insouciance, The Blood Price is knowledgeable about Balkan history, the current fragile peace maintained by NATO and the multi-billion-dollar international refugee-smuggling industry. Evans can write, too." - The Washington Post
Dark Places by JonEvans
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An acclaimed, award-winning thriller, published and translated around the world, now freely available on Wattpad. Paul Wood is a modern vagabond, a man who chooses to leave the comforts of San Francisco to spend months backpacking through some of the world's most challenging terrain. While hiking in the Himalayas, Paul gets more of a rush than he bargained for when he finds the body of a murdered hiker - mutilated in a way he has witnessed once before, in Africa, years ago and thousands of miles away. The police in Nepal, anxious to quell a scandal, close the case and declare the victim a suicide. Only Paul is left to search for answers. He reaches out to his farflung tribe of fellow backpackers for help, and his discoveries lead him to a terrible conclusion: a killer is stalking the international backpacker trail, preying on victims in wild places far beyond the reach of any authorities. A killer whom Paul may already know. Finding the murderer becomes an obsession that leads Paul from Himalayan peaks, through the jungles of Indonesia, across the bleak Sahara desert -- and into some of the darkest places imaginable... Dark Places won the 2005 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Reviews "You're hooked ... the characters are delightfully delineated ... beautifully controlled ... Evans contrives to slip the necessary specialist net-head detail into the plot without being boring or patronising. He can also pin down a character with a few details deftly brushed in ... A pacy thriller for the 21st century." - The Times "Anyone would enjoy Evans' clever, relentlessly absorbing debut thriller that becomes a lot more than just another serial-killer mystery." - The Ottawa Citizen "In this haunting suspense debut, Evans takes the reader on a page-turning adventure across five continents ... (a) spooky, inventive tale." - Publishers Weekly