The Volunteer: a Novel by Barbara Taylor Sissel
295 pages, 27 of 34 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
In the fall of 1999, psychologist Sophia Beckman is compelled by the court to give testimony on behalf of a death row inmate that results in his sentence being overturned. Haunted by secrets from her past, she avoids the media spotlight as much as possible, but soon, other prisoners’ families come seeking her assistance. One family in particular, the wife, children, and brother of Jarrett Capshaw, is especially insistent. Forty-one days ago Jarrett’s request to die was granted by the State of Texas, and he became a dead man walking, a man they call a volunteer.
Jarrett’s crimes were unusual, involving the theft of precious Mayan antiquities. Murder was never part of the plan, but murder is what happened. He pulled the trigger, and as little as he feels prepared for it, as much as he struggles with matters of the soul, he’s ready to die. It is the only way his family and the families of his victims will be free to move on. While Jarrett labors to find the words to say good-bye to those he has loved, Sophia finds herself drawn into a relationship with his wife and oldest son. It is Jarrett’s family she can’t resist and there will be a price to pay. But not even Sophia could have foreseen the outcome when the brutal truth is exposed, the unalloyed facts that, incredibly, will deliver Jarrett’s fate straight into her hands.
The Volunteer is a story about families, how they are made, and how in one single, horrifying instant, they can be broken. It is a story about mothers and the lies they tell to protect their children, to keep them from being hurt. But what happens when the truth comes out anyway and nothing and no one is spared? Sometimes the truth has the power to break your heart, and in Sophia’s case it will also endanger her freedom and threaten everything she has ever believed about her life.
Season of the Harvest by Michael Hicks
388 pages, 118 of 143 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled, Previously Free
What if the genetically modified crops that we increasingly depend on for food weren’t really created by man? And what if they had a far more sinister purpose?
If you’ve enjoyed stories by James Rollins, Michael Crichton, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, get ready to strap yourself in for a roller coaster ride of terror as you learn that you truly are what you eat…
At a genetics lab where a revolutionary strain of wonder food crops is being developed, FBI Special Agent Jack Dawson’s best friend and fellow agent, Sheldon Crane, is brutally murdered. The killer was looking for very special seeds that Jack’s friend had taken from the lab, and tore his body apart trying to find them…
Jack is convinced that Naomi Perrault, the beautiful geneticist who leads a group of suspected eco-terrorists, is behind the murder. But when FBI agents who aren’t quite who they claim to be show up on Jack’s doorstep after a bomb devastates the FBI lab in Quantico, destroying the evidence from his friend’s murder, Naomi becomes Jack’s only hope of survival.
Framed for murder and confronted by the terrifying truth of what the genetically engineered seeds stolen by his friend are truly for, Jack joins Naomi in a desperate battle across half the globe to save humanity from extermination…
252 pages, 66 of 78 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Montreal . . . the long, hot summer of 1996. . .
. . . and in the dark of night, moving like a shadowy wraith, a vigilante prowls the city’s streets.
The targets of his bloody rampage: the worst of the worst.
Murderers. Gangbangers. Rapists.
Six months. Sixteen murders. The harried police are still without a clue . . .
. . . until the day they receive an email from the assassin himself.
Lieutenant Dave McCall, head of Montreal’s Special Homicide Task Force, needs help to crack the secrets of the killer’s taunting message. He calls on an expert–Chris Barry, who runs a security firm specializing in computer communications.
Together, McCall and Barry launch a grim quest to track down a man who preys on predators–an urgent quest to bring this remorseless killer to justice.
But whose justice will prevail: theirs–or the vigilante’s?
Test Pilot’s Daughter: Revenge by Steve Ward
264 pages, 22 of 28 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled, Previously Free
Romance, adventure, murder and revenge, Christina Matthews does it all. An obsessed fly-girl with the Right Stuff and True Grit finds love in the oddest place, the cockpit. A beautiful and brainy college girl born with jet-fuel in her blood is haunted by a gripping family tragedy and the violent murder of her best friend. The only thing she truly fears is sleep. Tortured by nightmares, this test pilot’s daughter has to find a way to save her sanity or die. Mike Clark, call-name Lazer and a real Top Gun, looks to be the best kind of therapy.
With dreams of becoming an Astronaut-Commander, Christina struggles through heart-stopping perils in the cockpit and crash-lands on a deserted island. Without hope for rescue, she concocts an oddball plan to return survivors to civilization.
Risking her future at NASA, Christina delivers on a promise to a dying friend and faces her evil nemesis in the sky. Only by overcoming deep-seated fears can she exorcise her ghosts and pursue a lifelong dream of flying in space.
Will true love conquer Christina’s curse, or will she auger in?
The Donzerly Light by Ryne Douglas Pearson
309 pages, of reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
302 pages, 18 of 20 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
From the talented pen of Gennita Low comes the second installment in her exciting Navy SEALS trilogy.
Hawk McMillan, SEAL commander, is on a lone mission. To get close to Dragan Dilaver, a Kosovo kingpin involved in drugs and arms–trafficking, Hawk helped him escape from Asia and return to his former country of Yugoslavia. Now Hawk has to discover where certain weapons have been dropped for Dilaver over the diverse regions of Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania –– not an easy task for someone unfamiliar with the territory. In order for the operation to succeed, he needs a tracker and the only available person is CIA contact agent Amber Hutchens.
Beautiful and smart, Amber has made a life for herself in Velesta, Macedonia and she is more than capable of assisting Hawk in finding the cache of hidden weapons. Despite the danger of exposure and torture, they risk everything in their mission to strike down Dilaver and his ruthless gang –– even their love.
Unleashed: A Sydney Rye Novel by Emily Kimelman
341 pages, 20 of 24 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Joy Humbolt does not like people telling her what to do, so it comes as no surprise that she was just fired from her last job. When she buys Charlene Miller’s dog-walking business on Manhattan’s exclusive upper east side, it seems like the perfect fit: Posh environment, minimal contact with people.
But then one of her clients turns up dead, and Charlene disappears. Rumors say Charlene was having an affair with the victim–and of course, everyone assumes Joy must know where she is. Joy begins to look into the crime, first out of curiosity then out of anger when there is another murder and threats start to come her way.
When police detective Mulberry is assigned to the case, Joy finds a kindred spirit–cynical and none-too-fond of the human race. As they dig deep into the secrets of Manhattan’s elite, they not only get closer to the killer but to a treasure that might be worth risking everything to take.
The Consultant by Claude Bouchard
237 pages, 16 of 16 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
The friendly takeover of CSS Inc. leaves computer executive Chris Barry unemployed, very wealthy and pleased with the situation.
But the hiatus is short-lived…
As a result of his involvement in the recent Vigilante investigation, Barry is approached by Jonathan Addley and invited to join Discreet Activities, a government agency of the clandestine variety,
Accepting, he promptly takes on his first assignment under the guise of an IT consultant, to investigate possible links between a local import business and the murder of its MIS director.
As he discovers the firm is being used to import narcotics, his cover is blown and things get personal, spurring him to show that murderers, drug lords, biker gangs and kidnappers are no match for…
From Manhattan With Love by Christopher Smith
79 pages, 14 of 19 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
An outcast billionaire’s daughter is caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.
An international assassin questions her sanity when she falls in love with the very assassin she’s charged to assassinate.
What happens when each collide? Chaos. Murder. Love. Revenge.
And redemption.
The Wrecking Crew by Mark Chinnell
279 pages, 11 of 15 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
What will you do, when it’s them… or the woman you love?
Drug baron Janac has turned to piracy to fund his battle for control of the Australian narcotics trade. When he attacks the MV Shawould on an evil night in the South China Sea, it seems he has also found the perfect victim for his psychotic games.
Phil Hamnet and his wife Anna are sharing a last voyage on the Shawould before the arrival of their twins. Hamnet escapes Janac’s attack, but Anna is taken and held hostage to ensure first his silence and then his cooperation. But when Janac’s rogue ex-Special Forces crew attack more ships and men start dying, Hamnet has to decide if he can continue to sacrifice the lives of unknown sailors to save the woman he loves.
It’s an awful decision for anyone to have to make, but for a man who’s already had the same dilemma – in a lifeboat, adrift in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean – it’s a living nightmare.
Buying Murder: Regan McHenry Mystery Series by Nancy Lynn Jarvis
338 pages, 10 of 10 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Murder gets personal when human remains are found in the beach cottage that realtors Regan McHenry and her husband, Tom Kiley, buy. The murder victim has been hidden away for sixteen years, and although the authorities quickly discover his identity, the trail to his killer is cold after so many years.
Regan has sworn off playing amateur detective, but when it becomes clear the police have to focus on more pressing crimes, she has to break her promise. As her friend police ombudsman Dave Everett says, “Your house, Regan, your murder.”
Welcome back to Santa Cruz, the community whose unofficial motto is “Keep Santa Cruz Weird,” for the twists and turns of the third book in the Regan McHenry Mystery Series.
The Testimony of Two Witnesses by Jack Quinn
359 pages, 8 of 11 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Recently returned from suspension to practice law, criminal attorney Jacob Cotnoir is coerced into representing an old Frenchman accused of murdering elderly Georges Vachon, French Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations. Jake initially believes the impending high-profile trial could restore him to his previous fame and fortune, until his client refuses to divulge his identity, his background, or participate in his own defense.
Frustrated by the old man’s intransigence, Cotnoir launches an investigation that leads him to Paris, Normandy, and the French Riviera, where he discovers his client’s identity and estranged daughter, yet more questions than answers regarding his guilt or innocence of murder. During the trial, the widow of the victim and the daughter of the accused testify for the prosecution, telling damning, conflicting versions of the same story, so enraging the defendant that he insists on taking the stand, over Jake’s vigorous objections.
In so doing, the accused murderer relates an incredible, sixty year-old tale of unswerving love, intrigue, integrity, and defiance during World War II. His admittedly culpable testimony describes his involvement in the French Resistance, rescuing French Jews from the Holocaust, and the theft of a secret Nazi/Vichy document that could create havoc in U.S. and French governments today.
When Jake learns that the district attorney and shadowy Federal agents are competing with a group of neo-Nazis to ensure the defendant’s incarceration or murder, he becomes determined to save the heroic old man from death, or spending his waning years in prison–but is baffled at how he can extricate his client from a high security courtroom, and imminent transfer to Federal custody for prosecution for treason. Cotnoir’s ultimate dilemma is whether to allow a guilty verdict for his client to stand, or conspire with the Jewish Defense League to extricate the old man from his predicament, by circumventing the American judicial system.
The Quiet Assassin: A Novel by Thomas Kirkwood
330 pages, 5 of 5 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled, Previously Free
Here is a truly original thriller, comparable to the very best of vintage Le Carré. It is set behind the Berlin Wall in the heart of the East German police state and it features one of the most unique and winning heroines since Lucy in Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle. Her name is Käte Frassek, a resistance fighter since the age of eighteen, who over the course of twenty years leads a double life in her courageous campaign to rouse her countrymen to revolt against their repressive regime. She is a wife, a mother, a scientist, a lover… and an assassin. Against a backdrop of the Cold War in the 1960s, an abiding love develops between Käte, while still the young wife of an East German official, and an American physician innocent of who she is and what she is doing. In the remarkable climax to her years of plotting against the head of the State’s secret police, she finally must risk not only her own life but her son’s and lover’s as well. (From the original hardback edition) DEATH MATE To kill the man who had killed so many, Kate would do anything. She would use her brain to work herself to the top of her profession. She would yield her body to go even higher up the ladder of power. She would risk her own child as a pawn on a chessboard of cunning move and counter thrust. But now she was being asked to make a sacrifice she dreaded. Not her own life that would have been easy. But the life of the good and noble man she passionately loved — so that the beast she hated might die….
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I have not read any of these books, so they may not be any good. Some of the books from previous Free Book posts are still available for free. If you want to see all free books as they come out you should follow Books on the Knob on their RSS or Twitter Feed. Or Ireaderreview or the many free book threads on Amazon’s Message Boards.
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