First Mystery

Despatches from the secret world behind the headlines. Former SAS legend Chris Ryan brings you his 17th novel, filled with his trademark action, thrills and inside knowledge. Osama Bin Laden is dead. The President of the United States knows it. The world knows it. And SAS hero Joe Mansfield knows it. He was on the ground in Pakistan when it happened. He saw Seal Team 6 go in, and he saw them extract with their grisly cargo. He was in the right place at the right time. Or maybe the wrong place at the wrong time.

A daring kidnapping turns a children's birthday party at Camp David into a national security nightmare, but the hostage is not who anyone would expect. The First Lady enlists the services of King and Maxwell to bring the child back safely.

New York, September 1949. When Dennis Collins arrives at Madison Square Garden for the Friday night fights, he is on top of the world. His career as the man-about-town columnist of the New York Sentinel is on the upswing; his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers are contending for the pennant; and a lover who had jilted him years ago has unexpectedly agreed to drinks and dinner at the Stork Club. Collins is sure that his luck has turned for the better.

When past and present collide, sparks fly. Ten years ago, I broke Jack Walker’s heart without an explanation, and we’ve been bitter enemies ever since. It hasn’t been easy considering he’s my best friend’s brother, but it’s better all around if I keep my distance from the only man I’ve ever loved. Some secrets are better off buried. When my mother dies and leaves behind my two teenage brothers, I don’t have a choice but to return home to take care of them. The last person I expect to be waiting for me is Jack. And this time he isn’t going away without answers.

Ken Goddard’s First Evidence series centers on what may prove to be evidence of extraterrestrial contact. In this third book, crime scene investigator Colin Cellars wakes up in the maw of an fMRI machine at a remote military hospital, having no memory of who he is or how he got there - but he quickly becomes aware that he is being hunted. His instinctive response is to run, and he must rely on his new, incredibly enhanced sense of music and tone to trigger fragments of memories that may help him discover who is friend, who is foe - and who is something else entirely.

Dispatched to fight the Taliban as part of the NATO forces, the soldiers of the Third Platoon arrive in a desert hell intent on testing their courage and endurance. Among them are the charismatic platoon leader Schrøder, a former games designer fascinated by the imaginative potential of war; Colonel Steffensen, whose negotiating tactics will have deadly consequences; Sidekick, the LifeLogger whose online “war memorial” will blur into horror; and the hardened but vulnerable Hannah, who must bury her womanhood - or sacrifice her soul.

In a research hangar in Virginia, a Unit 51 team studies an ancient but long-dormant virus that can transform human physiology - and turn it into something else.... In the Amazon rain forest, a newly evolving life form known as Subject Z acquires the ability to think conceptually, build elaborate traps, create new carriers - and spawn a new race....

In their battle to save Earth from becoming another conquest of the alien Kasari Collective, Mark and Heather Smythe have struck crucial blows against the enemy. But their best efforts have still failed to derail the completion of the wormhole gateway that would give the insidious extraterrestrial invaders access to the planet - and doom humankind as helpless slaves of the Kasari hive mind.

When Mark and Heather Smythe saved Earth from the conquest-hungry Kasari Collective, they thought their work was done. But the world's vast new government continued its quest to make extraterrestrial contact. And now, as a new gateway is activated to welcome the Kasari, whom world leaders take to be benefactors, only the Smythes stand a chance of countering their planet's invasion and subjugation by a race of ruthless conquerors.

In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: The prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future.

Storming the Gap: First Strike reveals the explosive origins of the Third World War and delves into the opening salvos of the conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in a world where the Cold War turns hot in 1985. This epic story is told from a range of viewpoints - through the eyes of the decision-makers in Washington as well as the tankers and infantry fighting through hills and towns of southern Germany.

A lot has changed for ex-cop Clayton Conway. Can he roll with it while juggling the repo company, his crew, as well as his ex-wife, daughter, ex-girlfriend, and so much more? From the author of the award-winning crime thriller series Dirty Deeds comes a new series set in the same world!

The town of Northfall, Minnesota, will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon. John Frontier returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government.

Bone Gap is the story of Roza, a beautiful girl who is taken from a quiet Midwestern town and imprisoned by a mysterious man, and Finn, the only witness, who cannot forgive himself for being unable to identify her kidnapper. As we follow them through their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, and their uncertain futures, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness.

Four years ago, Dr. Rayne Lee lost her husband and her four-year-old daughter, Sierra, to a group of hostile guerrillas in the Amazonian Valley of Peru. It had taken every bit of her constitution to rebuild her life and to join her uncle's international security team, First Force, as the team's head medic. Then a young girl called, claiming to be Sierra. The tiny, trembling voice said the guerrillas were holding her captive and there was only one way for them to be reunited - Rayne must travel to Peru and give them something she has. They had another stipulation: She must come alone.

Five years ago, Grant Ketchum let the ballerina of his dreams dance out of his life. After her American adoptive parents had been killed in an automobile accident, Silja Ramsay returned to her birthplace, Russia, to become the principal dancer for the Novikov Ballet Company. Natalia Novikov, the owner of the company, has become so desperate to keep the company afloat that she’s forced her dancers to prostitute themselves to financial contributors at exclusive after-show parties. An American takes Ramsay back to his mansion, but she manages to text Grant "HELP!" before leaving.

Former time vice detective Tom Mandel lost his wife after failing to stop Malcolm Wolfe from pulling off the biggest time heist in Unity history. Nine years later, with less than a day remaining on his government-allotted Life Tracker, Tom's ready to join her. But when his former partner, Alaina Raines, brings word that Wolfe has escaped prison and is gearing up for another heist, Tom must decide: spend his last hours on Earth in a drug-induced haze or return to the life he left behind to catch the man who broke him.

A down-to-earth forensics expert has just discovered a crime scene that is out of this world. In criminal forensics they train you to uncover evidence, no matter how brutal or bizarre the murder. But what if one night you encounter a crime scene so terrifying that no one on earth can explain it? It begins deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, at the site of a reported shoot-out. Investigator Colin Cellars cannot find a trace of perpetrator or victim - or even confirm that anyone has been killed.

When one of Dash’s club patrons is murdered, Dash and his friends must discover the killer while also outwitting a devious blackmailer. Together, they navigate the shadowy world of drag queens, cabaret performers, gangsters, mob molls, lesbian lawyers, and a mysterious but dangerous “Baroness of Business.” Men and women who have everything to lose—and some of whom will do anything to keep their secrets hidden.

Though his father—a WW2 vet—tries to talk him into staying in college, young Andy Carter wants to follow his dreams. Dreams of serving his country and bringing communism to its knees. He joins the Army and after training finds himself due to ship to Vietnam.