Summary: When his boss is gunned down in a drive-by outside Chez Alain, the Jersey City restaurant where Frankie Fortunato works as a server, Frankie takes over as manager. Reluctantly, he becomes an integral part of New Jersey State Police Detective Matt Klimecki’s investigation aimed at bringing the criminals who perpetrated the crime to justice.
The story is that of an everyday guy who is torn between being a reluctant hero, or chucking it all and walking away from a dangerous situation. It’s his loyalty to his fellow workers that motivates him to put himself in a leadership position after the death of his boss to work with an investigating detective. One of those fellow workers is the woman he’s been falling in love with over time, Gabby D’Angelo. The criminals who perpetrated the crime are patrons of the restaurant, and conspired with the previous manager to use the restaurant to launder money from their illegal activities.
The setting is inner-city. The scenes can be gritty, and some of the characters are unsavory. Frankie is an honest, hard-working guy who rises to the occasion to fight his criminal antagonists. The mood is serious, as Frankie is constantly undergoing inner conflict over his decisions to (a) become the new restaurant manager, and (b) becoming part of Detective Matt Klimecki’s investigation. (Pub Date: Aug 04, 2020)
Summary: Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?
After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick's best friend (and maybe the love of his life).
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer's Renegades in TJ Klune's YA debut. (Pub Date: Jul 14, 2020)
Summary: Memphis "M" Engel is stubborn to a fault, graced with an almost absurd knowledge of long lost languages and cultures, and a heck of an opponent in a fight. In short: she's awesome.
Ashwin “Ash” Sood is a little too posh for M's tastes, a little too good looking, and has way too many secrets. He desperately wants the ancient map M inherited from her archeologist father, believing it will lead him to a relic with the power to destroy the world. M obviously can't trust him.
Equally desperate to find the relic for reasons of her own, M forms an uneasy partnership with Ash. From the catacombs of Paris, to a sacred forest in Norway, to the ruins of a submerged temple in Egypt, together they crisscross the globe in their search. But through it all, M can never be sure: Is she traveling with a friend or enemy? (Pub Date: Sep 11, 2018)
Summary: When Charles Pritchett recruits Ed Maddux as a civilian asset for the CIA, Maddux never imagined the shadow world that exists around him . . . or the danger that lurks in his own city.
Maddux, whose father mysteriously disappeared, is enlisted to help provide the CIA with surveillance on a long-time friend, city councilman Nicholas Dunn. But Maddux hesitates to help, unsure that what the CIA is suggesting is true. But when he becomes suspicious of Dunn—and he sees the chance to learn more about his father’s disappearance—Maddux agrees to help.
With the help of Pritchett and Technical Services Division tech Rose Fuller, Maddux must enter into a shadowy world to stop a deadly attack that would turn the Cold War into a full-fledged conflict.
Summary: Jazz Bashara is a criminal.
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first. (Pub Date: Nov 14, 2017)
Summary: Kidnap negotiator Thea Paris has spent her entire life with survivor's guilt, following an unspeakable childhood tragedy. At eight years old, she watched, frozen in fear, as her twelve-year-old brother, Nikos, was abducted from their home in Kanzi, Africa. Although he was recovered nine months later, he was never the same after that; worse, Thea discovers that she was supposed to have been the target.
This defining experience drives Thea to become one of the top operatives in the field of kidnap-and-ransom consultancy. Nicknamed "Liberata" because she once secured the release of a captive from the Sicilian mob without her client paying a cent, she travels the globe trying to bring hostages home--mostly through negotiation, but occasionally through more forceful means. She is very good at her job.
Twenty years after her brother's abduction, Thea's worst nightmare is revisited when her father, oil magnate Christos Paris, is taken on his sixtieth birthday. He disappears from his yacht while it is moored at Santorini, the ship's whole crew slaughtered mercilessly.
Thea immediately calls in her team at Quantum Security International, premier K&R specialists. Following protocol, they break down Christos' life, looking for leads, but the list of enemies and business competitors is endless. Not surprisingly, Christos Paris has imprinted his designer shoe on innumerable backs during his journey to the top of the oil business. And he was abducted only a few days before the biggest deal of his career.
From there, the case only gets stranger. Unlike most abductions, there are no ransom demands, no political appeals, no prisoner release requests. Instead, the kidnapper sends foreboding quotes in Latin by text from burner phones. What does the kidnapper want?
And most importantly for Thea, will she be able to prevent a second kidnapping from destroying her family for good? (Pub Date: Feb 7, 2017)
Summary: Michael Skellig is a limo driver waiting for his client in the alley behind an upscale hotel. He’s spent the past twenty-eight hours ferrying around Bismarck Avila, a celebrity skateboard mogul who isn’t going home any time soon. Suddenly the wind begins to speak to Skellig in the guttural accent of the Chechen torturer he shot through the eye in Yemen a decade ago: Troubletroubletrouble. Skellig has heard these warnings before—he’s an Army Special Forces sergeant whose limo company is staffed by a ragtag band of wounded veterans, including his Afghan interpreter—and he knows to listen carefully.
Skellig runs inside just in time to save Avila from two gunmen but too late for one of Avila’s bodyguards—and wakes up hours later in the hospital, the only person of interest in custody for the murder. Complicating matters further is the appearance of Detective Delilah Groopman of the LAPD, gorgeous and brash, for whom Skellig has always held a candle. As for Avila? He’s willing to help clear Skellig’s name under one peculiar condition: that Skellig become Avila’s personal chauffeur. A cushy gig for any driver, except for the fact that someone is clearly trying to kill Avila, and Skellig is literally the only person sitting between Avila and a bullet to the head. (Pub Date: Aug 8, 2017)
