Dystopian Mystery

In the near future, climate change has hit hard; unemployment is high, and controversial longevity treatments are only available to the very rich. Enter DC Police Detective Jen B. Lu and her partner, Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain providing an instant link to the internet and police records. As a detective in the Elder Abuse Unit, Jen is supposed to be investigating kids pushing their aging parents to exit so that they’re eligible to get the longevity drug. But what really has her attention are the persistent rumors about Eden, a black-market version of the longevity drug.

But one Alt, Chester "Chilly" Beckett, did not celebrate; his eyes have been opened to the truth. Luka's corpse is dragged away, but Chester remains determined to find out what is going on in the Laboratory on the 65th floor. There, he finds three subjects tortured in an attempt to extract a regeneration formula... and one of the subjects is, impossibly, a face he never thought he'd seen again. A bold escape sets in motion a race against time as Happy's plans to release planet-eating nano-bots into the world draw nearer.

The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating effect: Venice submerged, cyclones in Oklahoma, megafires in South America. Yet it could be much worse. Two decades earlier, the global protest movement known as the Upheavals helped break the planet’s fossil fuel dependency, and the subsequent Nuremberg-like Toronto Trials convicted the most powerful oil executives and lobbyists for crimes against the environment. Not all of them. A few executives escaped arrest and went into hiding, including pipeline mastermind Robert Cave.

When a series of disappearances throughout the city is linked to a prevalent line of implants called Eloise IV, forensic psychologist Kat Holinger is brought onboard to find the connection. Using a mysterious device called Eidetica to burrow into the archived memories of each implant’s abducted user, Kat and its creator Quentin Rhodes are launched into the peculiarities of the human mind.

The Last Layover is a fiction novel based on real places and potential scenarios where an out of control government pushes America to the brink of financial and social collapse. This vulnerable state allows the unthinkable to happen, causing the comfort, security, and conveniences of our modern first world society to quickly come to an end.

When Yang Wei travels to C City for work, he expects nothing more than a standard business trip. A break from his day-to-day routine, a good paycheck, a nice hotel—nothing too extravagant, of course. No fuss, but all the amenities. But this is where his problems begin. A complimentary bottle of mineral water from the hotel minibar results in sudden and debilitating stomach pain, followed by unconsciousness. When he wakes three days later, things don’t improve; they get worse. With no explanation, the hotel forcibly sends him to a hospital for examination.

Imagine a London where magic is real...real, but feared. This is Eliza Braxton's London, and she has always accepted her place in it gladly. As one of the Riftborn, her magic has relegated her to the servant class, where she dutifully serves as the lady's maid in one of the most powerful households in the country. There, she uses her remarkable powers of persuasion to keep Elder Hallewell's rebellious daughter in the path to an arranged match of power and prosperity. Eliza has never questioned her loyalty...until now.

Part human and part robot, private investigator Bruna Husky has been hired to locate a stolen diamond. But as Bruna's leads start to drop dead, her case becomes about much more than a stolen gem - and much more dangerous. Traversing the galaxy, Bruna races against the clock to uncover a nuclear power conspiracy that threatens all sentient beings.

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria - a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money.

In 2035, the southwestern United States is ravaged by drought, reeling from an environmental catastrophe that has left the landscape a chaotic, depleted ruin. California, still viably inhabitable due to its oppressive social controls, marshals state-of-the-art surveillance technology and totalitarian policies to preserve its fragile hold on rapidly dwindling resources and an increasingly unsettled population.

This - a sequel to Gated - is a nerve-fraying contemporary young adult thriller that will make listeners question loyalties as it twists truths. Her life was based on a lie. Lyla Hamilton almost died escaping the Community. In her new life, the outsiders call the Community a cult. They don’t understand how easy it was to believe. How good it felt to belong. “Normal” life - high school and dating - is harder than Lyla expected. Who should she love? Who should she hate? The Community is willing to do terrible things to bring her back to the fold.

The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.

Thirty-year-old UNPOL officer Richard Warren has been embedded with the BBC, and not seeing eye-to-eye with journalist Sarah Dyer is just the start of his problems. News of an Ebola pandemic is being withheld, and when it’s discovered Sarah’s savant brother is involved, Richard’s determination to expose the truth takes an unexpected turn. But what if the truth must never be known?

A world where self-expression is banned. A world where survival is everything. A girl who will be heard. Seventeen-year-old Teddy lives in the walled-in city Metropolis. Radical laws condemn all forms of self-expression and creativity, and the lives of the people are carefully constructed and controlled by the City Council: we watch because we care. When Teddy finds out the truth behind one of the city's biggest lies, she slips out into the darkness of the city after curfew.

Cassie West licenses crimes for V.I.C.E, spending long hours convincing grieving families to allow her to sell their tragedies to the highest bidder. Life is hard and the cost of living high, but she and her husband Harris have never been happier. After years of trying, Cassie is finally pregnant. But leaving work late one evening, Cassie starts to worry. Harris isn't responding to texts or calls. Even worse, dozens of emergency drones seem to be heading in the same direction as she is: straight to their home.

As a child, Linda Russell was left to raise herself in a 20-acre walled-off property in rural Washington. The woods were her home, and for 12 years she lived oblivious to a stark and terrible truth: Her mother had birthed her only to replace another daughter who died in a tragic accident years before. Then one day Linda witnesses something she wasn’t meant to see.

When propagandist Paulo Xirau dies and is discovered to himself be a "machine", State Security Agent Nikolai South is given a new assignment he could hardly want less: chaperone the widow, Lily, the only "machine" visitor ever invited from the outside world, and help her determine what happened to her husband. Nikolai knows it will be nearly impossible to complete the job without running afoul of the Party - but when he sees that Lily bears an eerie resemblance to his late wife, Nikolai stumbles on a larger plot.

Rhona has battled the malevolent AI intent on wiping out humanity since the first Machinations began - until she’s killed during a rescue mission gone wrong. Now, Rhona awakens to find herself transported to a new body, complete with her DNA and her personality. She's a clone...of herself. Except for her missing memories. Some of which could potentially turn the tide of the war.

In the aftermath of a deadly outbreak - reminiscent of the 1962 event of mass hysteria that was the Tangayika Laughter Epidemic - a city at the tip of Africa is losing its mind, with residents experiencing hallucinations and paranoia. Is it simply another episode of mass hysteria, or something more sinister? In a quarantined city in which the inexplicable has already occurred, rumors, superstitions, and conspiracy theories abound.

The City of Brotherly Love is currently under the protection of General Anthony Bell, commander of the famed 56th Stryker Brigade, the Independence Brigade. But in a world gone mad, nothing is as it seems. And when Bell has Lee arrested and put up on charges, it’s up to Lee’s right-hand man, Major Chris Walker, to pick up the pieces. Can he snatch Lee from the hangman’s noose, and can he guide his troops and his civilian charges through the gathering horde of maniacal killers? Or will they all die laughing?