FRESH KILLS (2010)
Fresh Kills is a collection of original short stories by the authors of the popular literary blog The Kill Zone: John Gilstrap, John Ramsey Miller, James Scott Bell, Michelle Gagnon, Joe Moore, Kathryn Lilley and Clare Langley-Hawthorne. These killer tales vary from the paranormal to the chilling to the just plain scary. Each delivers a finely crafted tale that will keep you clicking through the pages. In John Gilstrap’s suspenseful “In The After,” an intruder demands the impossible of Tony Emerson—he wants to set the clock back 18 years and retrieve the childhood that Tony stole from him.
THE COPPER BRACELET (2009)
The #1 Best Seller at Audible.com! A peaceful picnic in the French countryside explodes in violence. A mysterious assassin hisses a deadly threat. And events are set in motion that could propel India and Pakistan down the road to nuclear confrontation. Two years after the events of the Audiobook of the Year The Chopin Manuscript, former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton and his Volunteers once again must crack a secretive conspiracy that not only threatens their lives, but the stability of the world. Their race against time will take them from London to the U.S. to Russia and beyond. And at the heart of it all is one question: what is the secret of the Copper Bracelet? Sixteen of the world’s greatest thriller writers collaborated on The Copper Bracelet. Once again, as he did with The Chopin Manuscript, Jeffery Deaver wrote the first chapter. Then, each successive author wrote a chapter in turn, finally returning it to Deaver to complete this thrilling sequel.
THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT (2007)
2008 Audie Award Winner: Audiobook of the Year! Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a previously unknown score by Frederic Chopin. But he is unaware that, locked within its handwritten notes, lies a secret that now threatens the lives of thousands of Americans. As he races from Poland to America to uncover the mystery of the manuscript, Middleton will be accused of murder, pursued by federal agents, and targeted by assassins. But the greatest threat will come from a shadowy figure out of his past: the man known only as Faust. The Chopin Manuscript is a unique collaboration by 15 of the world’s greatest thriller writers. Jeffery Deaver conceived the characters and set the plot in motion; the other authors each wrote a chapter in turn. Deaver then completed what he started, bringing The Chopin Manuscript to its explosive conclusion.
SIX MINUTES TO FREEDOM (WITH KURT MUSE) (2006)
Six Minutes to Freedom is the gripping true story of a real-life hero at the center of an international crisis and of the US Army’s elite Delta Force team who saved his life. Kurt Muse and his band of heroes began to defy the ruthless dictator of Panama by going on the air with an underground radio station encouraging civil resistance. Six Minutes to Freedom is Kurt Muse’s remarkable story, from his eventual arrest by Noriega’s brutal henchmen and his months of imprisonment, to the squalid conditions he faced in Panama’s infamous Modelo Prison, from his eyewitness accounts of his fellow inmates’ torture to the plight of his own family as they fled for their lives. And it reveals, for the first time, the astonishing details of the day he became the only American civilian ever rescued by the elite U.S. Army’s Delta Force. A highly personal narrative that reads like a story ripped from the pages of a well-crafted thriller. Six Minutes to Freedom is the story of a courageous American on foreign soil, who risked his life for the country and people he loved.
Note: To hire Kurt Muse as a speaker, visit his page at AAE Speakers.
SCOTT FREE (2003)
Sherry Carrigan O’Toole can’t seem to make the prescriptions she offers in her bestselling self-help books apply to her own life. Six years after her marriage to Brandon disintegrated and he won custody of their son, Scott, there’s no room in their lives for her. Hoping to win back the teenager’s heart, Sherry arranges a week’s skiing at the plush SkyTop Village resort. But Scott has other plans. Determined to evade his mother’s clutches, he jumps at the chance to join a foolhardy adventure to fly a Cessna through a nighttime storm to Salt Lake City for a Metallica concert. After the plane crashes, Scott is lost and alone in the frozen wilderness, miles from anywhere people would search for him. As Brandon and Sherry revisit the old battles that tore them apart, they have to fight a bureaucracy that wants to abandon the search even as their son struggles to survive impossible odds. Barely alive, Scott finally finds a cabin for shelter. He thinks his troubles are over. When he discovers the truth about the man who lives there, however, it’s clear that his terror has barely begun.
EVEN STEVEN (2000)
Bobby and Susan Martin want nothing more than to have a child of their own, the blessing that would make their marriage whole. Never did they dream that a restorative camping trip would change their lives forever—when a tiny, filthy, freezing young boy dashes out of the woods near their campsite. The boy’s violent kidnappers quickly come for him—and in a chaotic, explosive moment, the Martins appear to be drawn into an unthinkable crime: the brutal murder of a police officer. Now Bobby, Susan, and the eerily quiet young boy must stay one step ahead of a vicious crime ring, and are unsure whether they can trust the police—or if they are responsible for the death of one of their brethren. As the couple desperately plunges into the heart of danger to save themselves and the boy, deep emotions about their failed pregnancies come to the surface. Even if Bobby and Susan figure a way out of their spiraling circumstances, will they be able to surrender this child who has come into their lives and, in his own way, filled a painful chasm in their marriage? A galvanizing story of kidnapping, murder, mystery and love, a page-turner that builds to a heart-stopping climax, John Gilstrap’s gripping novel enhances his reputation as one of the most ingenious and innovative of contemporary thriller writers.
AT ALL COSTS (1998)
Meet Jake and Carolyn Brighton, in all respects a typical couple in small-town America. No one would ever think that they occupy the top two slots on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Fourteen years ago their last name was Donovan, and according to their accusers, they slaughtered sixteen of their friends and touched off an eco-disaster of unprecedented proportions. The Feds want them. Badly. So badly that the FBI’s chief will stop at nothing to bring them to justice. When a freak false arrest rousts the Donovans from their hiding place, the chase is on. But this time, after all the years underground, Jake and Carolyn are not sure they have the stamina to renew their flight. Even more poignantly, they know they don’t have the heart to condemn their 13-year-old son, Travis—who has no idea that his parents are two of the most wanted fugitives in the country—to a life on the run. To achieve salvation, not just for themselves but for him, the couple must attempt the insane: elude a massive man hunt and revisit the origins of their nightmare—a toxic hell that just may contain the evidence that will set them free.
NATHAN’S RUN (1996)
Nathan’s Run will touch the heart of anyone who’s ever reached out for a helping hand, battled against impossible odds, or searched for a sign that they, too, matter. Beginning with a savage killing at a suburban Virginia juvenile detention center, Nathan’s Run hurtles 12-year-old Nathan Bailey through a terrifying gauntlet. Accused of murder and branded a cop killer, Nathan becomes the target of a nationwide manhunt even as a vicious hit man is closing in on him. Orphaned and alone, Nathan has nowhere to turn for help. To stay alive he can count only on himself: on his agility, natural cleverness and honesty. Ironically, the latter proves a formidable weapon as the boy endears himself to a national radio talk show host and, along the way, pleads his case to a rapt nation. Still, “justice” will not be denied, and as an army of police and a dogged contract killer draw closer, Nathan is tested to the very limits of his endurance.
Read the original ending of Nathan’s Run
