The 'Bear Killer Badge' is earned through acts of courage, perseverance and good judgement to achieve an extraordinary deed. In 1897 Wyoming, Dave Smith faces bankruptcy after a winter blizzard killed off his cattle herd. Purchase of replacement cattle cannot take place until the sale of a valuable thoroughbred race horse redoubles his bank account. One obstacle stands in the way. The horse must be delivered halfway across Wyoming where obstructions arise from attempted horse theft to ransom of a railroad executive. The story encounters a major impediment on a lonely abandoned railroad siding in Suggs, Wyoming. A Chicago, Burlington & Quincy locomotive and private railcar figure prominently as the story moves via railroad from north to south within Wyoming. Dave Smith learns he is considered for appointment as a District Judge for three counties, one being Johnson County still rebuilding from the 1892 war that required the intervention of the US Cavalry to end the shooting war. Undertones of conflict simmer five years later with efforts to drive off small ranchers, arsonist night riders and rampant outlaw gangs from the ' Hole in the Wall' unassailable hideout that includes the Dalton gang, the Wild Bunch, as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Dave's forays into stopping civil unrest and rustling gangs chip away at the criminal hold in north central Wyoming. Closer to home he learns his new cattle herd is subject to being rustled unless he makes plans to thwart the theft. Worst of all he discovers a friend foments the rustling tactics. Old partner, Jim Bowen, a rapscallion US Marshal generates quirky encounters with outlaws while adding the weight of his marshal's badge to the roundup of miscreants. The Checker Board ranch inhabitants continue to grow including a cadre of black men from the 9th Cavalry 'Buffalo Soldiers', a British tutor for the irascible twin boys, and the Cheyenne Indians who are on hand to deal with any threat to the ranch. Dave's grown red-headed twins, Seth and Seamus, inadvertently create a 'worse nightmare' bear rampage. This event initiates the idea of "the Bear Killer Badge' bestowed on those who earn it through bravery and self-preservation. Many factors make up the highlights of this book, including whether the governor will sign off on the district judgeship. Dave and Bowen delve into ways to restrain the 'Hole in the Wall' hideout of bank robbers, train holdup artists, and wholesale rustlers. To find a way to breech the vertical red walled canyon, the most redoubtable criminal fortress in the west, remains an unsolvable problem unless Dave Smith can develop a new scheme to penetrate the 'Hole in the Wall'.

A homicide detective like no other delves into the mind of a madman in this explosive, page-turning near-future thriller from the author of The Memory Detective. Cole Jones isn’t afraid to die. His whole career has been built on facing death in the most intimate of ways—by taking on victims’ memories to solve their murders. That’s why the tabloids dubbed him the Memory Detective. What Cole’s really afraid of is that the job is going to drive him crazy. With fourteen memory transfers under his belt, Cole might finally be on the brink of madness. After solving a grisly murder that took a huge toll on his psyche, he promised himself he would become a “normal” cop. Then a bomb goes off in New York, and Cole is once again called on to use his unique skills—in a way he’s never been tested before. With a dead suspect and mere days before the next threatened bombing, Cole must use the memories of the murderer to piece together a devious plot. Facing a literal ticking time bomb, Cole must fight the memories battling in his head. If he can’t put himself in the mind of the killer in time, more people will die. But if he can, something inside of him might die instead.

From MUSKEG to MURDER begins by chronicling the epic struggles and enormous challenges of the author's ancestors as they struggled to scrounge a living under the oppressive regime of the Tzar in 19th Century Ukraine. They finally fled their desperate situation, eventually settling in the free and serene environs of Canada. As a boy in rural British Columbia in the mid 20th Century, Andrew Maksymchuk is enthralled by the stories of his immigrant family's escape from oppression, and he dreams of fighting injustice. That dream becomes reality when, at 21, he is initiated into the Ontario Provincial Police Force. Sent to serve in remote Northwestern Ontario, he learns his craft in its mining centres, pulp and paper industry communities, Indian reservations, native settlements and boom towns. From MUSKEG to MURDER follows "Maks" as he tracks criminals on foot across frozen muskeg, by canoe and speedboat along breathtaking waterways, by rail along the CNR's ribbons of steel, and by airplane above the vastness of the Canadian Shield. In makeshift courtrooms, primitive cabins and isolated outposts, he overcomes limited training, deficient supervision, poor transportation and communication resources and the clash of cultures with ingenuity, dedication and humour. The author's willingness to share the most painful and intimate aspects of his life in a candid and unvarnished fashion serves to forge a solid bond with the reader. Family, friends, community and duty become entwined against a backdrop of a changing Canada as Maks shares his experiences and insights into the unique place of the OPP in Canadian police service.

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller—set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate—by Lindsay Cummings, co-author (with Sasha Alsberg) of the New York Times #1 Bestseller Zenith. "Legend meets La Femme Nikita in this dark and dangerous bloody thriller. The nonstop action of The Murder Complex kept us guessing at every twist and turn. It's a must for fans of action-packed dystopians like The Hunger Games and Divergent."—Justine Magazine Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision. The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn't know it—one of the MC's programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family? Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

Jan McCanless has served up another delicious murder mystery, this time involving the unassuming, but, very capable Abbot Jerome from the Monastery of the Blue Ridge, located in Ridgeville, NC that just happens to be down the road a couple miles from the summer home of Steve and Suzanne Thomas. On a Mississippi cruise with his meddlesome sibling, a body is discovered hanging on the paddle wheel that sits off the stern of the boat. With just 72 hours before returning to port in New Orleans, the Abbot gets involved in solving the murder. With no one aware that he is a monk, he sets about to find the murderer, hindered by the women passengers who consider him fair game. Once back at the monastery, things do not go well, as Abbot and his new found friend, a federal agent, become embroiled in even more skullduggery, along with the group of monks and misfits that occupy the monastery. Come along for the cruise of a lifetime with our principals, and guest appearances along the way from that delightful Beryl's Cove bunch, and of course, Dawg and Elvis, and their new friend, Max, the Basset Hound.

Ever had to sit next to someone unpleasant on the bus for a long time? Did they stare at you for the whole journey without blinking, whilst extracting a reluctant object from their nose? And did they smell bad? Well, he's in the story. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a cat sink its claws into your neck whilst it gnawed into your throat? He's in the book too. These and other similar issues are just some of the situations encountered by detectives as they dig up the dirt investigating a kidnapping. As they prepare to interview acquaintances of the suspect (Jack King) where they would compare times and places, they couldn't possibly have prepared themselves for the insane people they were about to meet. The first of these was 'the guy from the bus, ' a little retarded and would make the detectives earn their pay to get any sense out of him. He also had a whimsical habit of blowing his house up, lets hope the detectives don't go inside. Enter vicious red haired brute. This was the local neighbour and extra from Lord of the Rings and her name was Laurel. Finally the detectives would have to deal with the elderly eccentric relatives who'd lost more than their marbles. Meanwhile Jack King blissfully unaware of any wrong doing, carried on with his usual routine in life. Lately that consisted of chasing a white rabbit through countless gardens, fighting large cat with one hand, ogling at beautiful girls in pyjamas or nurses, before the police came after him. But all this would pale into insignificance when he went to hospital and was accosted by woman assassin with gun as he lay naked on the bed.