Spring/Summer 2012

Fifteen Digits

Nick Santora

A gritty thriller set in the world of powerful New York law firms, from Nick Santora, writer of the hit crime dramas The Sopranos, Law & Order, Prison Break, and Breakout Kings and the nationally bestselling author of Slip & Fall.

Is it really insider trading if you've been an outsider your entire life?

Five men. Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they're not lawyers. They're "Printers": blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.

Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan to take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard -- each one only knows one section of the access code.

Which means that for all five conspirators, there's no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there's one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.

Slip & Fall

Nick Santora

Faced with a struggling practice, a pregnant wife, and a sister in trouble, Robert Principe realizes the white-collar world isn't as easy as he thought. He needs money. Fast.

Desperate, he approaches his wiseguy cousin Jackie with an insurance scheme -- a way for the Mob to collect from guys who owe but can't pay, and a chance for Robert to use his law degree to make a few quick bucks when he needs it most.

Robert thinks it will be a one-time thing. It isn't. The scheme works well -- too well. The money flows, the violence escalates, and Robert soon learns that getting out of a deal with the Mafia isn't exactly easy . . . especially when the FBI is onto you.

Vengeance

Newt Gingrich

In this fast-paced political thriller, Major Brooke Grant joins the president's top-secret CIA team and races around the globe in pursuit of a terrorist known only as the Falcon.

On the day of Major Brooke Grant's wedding, an explosive-packed rental truck detonates a deadly bomb, killing hundreds of her friends and family and endangering D.C.'s most powerful politicians.

Saved by a last-minute fluke, Brooke seeks revenge against the master terrorist responsible, an international radical Islamist who is determined to murder her, bring America to its knees, and create a modern-day caliphate.

With help from an odd duo -- a Saudi intelligence officer and an Israeli Mossad agent -- Brooke goes after her elusive zealot nemesis. But before the team can close in on their target, they discover that America's worst nightmare has come true.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Pulitzer Prize finalist Pete Earley deliver fast-paced writing and a frighteningly believable plot in this third installment of the bestselling Brooke Grant series. Set against the backdrop of Washington's political intrigue, Vengeance is a heart-pounding thriller that raises serious questions about our national security, the power of religious faith to inspire good and evil, the consequences of revenge, and the validity of our constitutional safeguards.

Guilt by Degrees

Marcia Clark

Harrowing, smart, and riotously entertaining, Guilt by Degrees is a thrilling ride through the world of LA courts with the unforgettable Rachel Knight.

Someone has been watching D.A. Rachel Knight -- someone who's Rachel's equal in brains, but with more malicious intentions. It began when a near-impossible case fell into Rachel's lap, the suspectless homicide of a homeless man. In the face of courthouse backbiting and a gauzy web of clues, Rachel is determined to deliver justice. She's got back-up: tough-as-nails Detective Bailey Keller.

As Rachel and Bailey stir things up, they're shocked to uncover a connection with the vicious murder of an LAPD cop a year earlier. Something tells Rachel someone knows the truth, someone who'd kill to keep it secret.

Alpha

Greg Rucka

For the visitors to Wilsonville, the largest theme park in the world, the day began with a smile. By the end, they wonder-will they be able to escape with their lives?

Retired Delta Force operator, Master Sergeant Jonathan "Jad" Bell, is Wilsonville's lead undercover security officer. The threat begins with the announcement of a hidden dirty bomb, but quickly becomes something far, far worse.

Trained since the age of seventeen to save innocent victims from impossible hostage situations, Jad scrambles to assess the threat and protect the visitors. He will come face to face with a villain whose training matches his in every way-and presents a threat Jad may not be able to stop.

The Wreckage

Michael Robotham

An international thriller based on one of the bigest bank heists in history.

Billions of dollars are missing from Iraqi banks, and journalist Luca Terracini will risk everything to discover where it is. His Iraqi-American background has made it easier for him to infiltrate the darkest corners of the war, but death of his beloved Nicola in a suicide bombing has made him reckless. He has nothing left to lose.

In pursuit of the money, he meets UN representative Daniela Garner, who seems to know more about the heist than anyone else. She's a valuable asset in Baghdad where the possibility of an explosion lurks at every checkpoint. Luca's investigation proves volatile as well, and as he gets closer to the missing money, his actions begin to reverberate around the world.

In London, Richard North, a top-tier international banker and the one person who might be able to explain where the money has gone, vanishes. The manhunt for him will get Luca evicted from Iraq, separated from Daniela, and possibly end both his investigation and his life.

As usual, it's all about the money: who has it, who's lost it, and who's ultimately going to pay, as clandestine agents emerge from the shadows and powerful nations seek to control information and bury secrets, whatever the cost.

The Demands

Mark Billingham

The Crime

The customers in a London convenience store are taken captive. Among them is young mother, Detective Helen Weeks. She is told her life depends on the co-operation of one of her colleagues - detective Tom Thorne.

The Demand

Akhtar is desperate to know what really happened to his beloved son, who died a year before in prison. He is convinced the death was not an accident and forces the one man who knows more about the case than any other, Thorne, to re-investigate.

The Twist

What Thorne discovers will upend everything he thought he knew about the fate of those he's put away...but will it be enough to fulfill the wishes of a grieving and potentially violent father?

Hunt the Wolf

Ralph Pezzullo

Navy SEAL Team Six commando Don Mann infuses his debut military thriller with the real-life details only a true insider can reveal.

In the midst of a grueling training exercise, Thomas Crocker, USN, unearths a pocket of terrorism that leads straight from the slopes of K2 to the cities of Europe and the Middle East. Crocker and his team, who are trained for the most intense kinds of combat in the most extreme environments, must blaze through a perilous web of terrorist cells to track down a ruthless sheikh who is running an international kidnapping ring before his captives pay the ultimate price.

Hunt the Wolf is an adrenaline-packed novel sure to appeal to fans of Vince Flynn and Brad Thor, featuring the world's most elite soldiers and based on the experiences of renowned SEAL Team 6 commando Don Mann.

Bloodline

Mark Billingham

A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.

The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.

When Murder Squad veteran Detective Tom Thorne, who solves the London Police Department's most difficult cases, is called into what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder, he thinks he's caught a break. A woman has been murdered by someone she knows. A positive pregnancy test found on the floor beside her. Thorne plans to question the husband, arrest him and return home to deal with his own deteriorating personal life.

But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, Thorne realizes that this is not a simple case. As the bits of X-ray begin to come together to form a picture, it becomes clear that the killer knows his prey all too well and is moving through a list that was started long ago.

As Thorne attempts to protect those still alive, nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted.

Guilt by Association

Marcia Clark

Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is a tenacious, wise-cracking, and fiercely intelligent prosecutor in the city's most elite division. When her colleague, Jake, is found dead at a grisly crime scene, Rachel is shaken to the core. She must take over his toughest case: the assault of a young woman from a prominent family.

But she can't stop herself from digging deeper into Jake's death, a decision that exposes a world of power and violence and will have her risking her reputation -- and her life -- to find the truth.

With her tremendous expertise in the nuances of L.A. courts and crime, and with a vibrant ensemble cast of characters, Marcia Clark combines intimate detail, riotous humor, and visceral action in a debut thriller that marks the launch of a major new figure on the crime-writing scene.

Shake Off

Mischa Hiller

An internationally acclaimed thriller of love, espionage and subterfuge, in which Middle East meets West with dangerous consequences.

Years of training have transformed Michel Khoury into a skilled intelligence operative. A refugee whose family was murdered by extremists, he has one mission: the peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict that upended his life.

An alluring enigma, he attracts the attention of Helen, a pretty English girl who lives in the adjacent apartment. As their relationship develops, Michel is unable to tell Helen about his past -- or the collection of passports and unmarked bills he's concealed in the bathroom they share.

When Michel's secrets turn deadly, Helen and Michel find themselves pursued through the streets of London, Berlin and the Scottish countryside, on the run from the very people they thought they could trust.

A critically celebrated novel that "recalls the cool detachment and compelling eye for ordinary detail that characterized the early thrillers of Graham Greene" (Independent on Sunday), Shake Off is that rare breed of riveting tale -- of intrigue and suspense, love and betrayal -- that announces a bold new voice for our increasingly global times.

Triple Crossing

Sebastian Rotella

Valentine Pescatore, a volatile rookie Border Patrol agent, is trying to survive the trenches of The Line in San Diego. He gets in trouble and finds himself recruited as an informant by Isabel Puente, a beautiful U.S. agent investigating a powerful Mexican crime family.

As he infiltrates the mafia, Pescatore falls in love with Puente. But he clashes with her ally Leo Mendez, chief of a Tijuana anti-corruption unit. Politically charged violence escalates, plunging Pescatore into the lawless "triple border" region of South America and a showdown full of bloodshed and betrayal.

Writing with rapid-fire intensity, Sebastian Rotella captures the despair and intrigue of the borderlands, where enforcing the law has become an act of subversion. Triple Crossing is an explosive and riveting debut.