Action Adventure

During a weekly trip to the post office to check for mail, homeless combat veteran Ray Acuna gets a great deal more than he bargained for. One moment, he has a satisfactory, if less than ideal, life and all the time in the world. The next, not so much.

From the opening: Of the three wingback chairs in my library, only one is upholstered in human skin. There's a reason for that. Charles Claymore Task has been labeled a psychopath by hypocrites who see themselves as "normal." And a group of wealthy investors want to know what makes him tick. They ask him to detail for a film crew what makes people like him tick. At least that's the initial plan. On film, Charlie describes the abandonment, disillusionment, and betrayals that created him and made him what he is: a professional freelance hitman. He uses the opportunity to offer an autobiography of his first 32 years. From a few months after his birth through his early childhood, he describes the abandonment, disillusionment, lies and betrayals that created him. Subjected to unimaginable cruelties by his father, Charlie learns paradoxically not to subject others to the same cruelties. Also paradoxically, that subjugation instills within him a deep, abiding sense of right and wrong and a hatred for anyone who would harm others, especially children. But it also molds his personality into one that is ideally suited for a public service-something he calls Blight Removal-and a profession as a freelance hit artist. Charlie candidly provides examples of Blight Removal. Some of them very personal. If you enjoy a fast-paced, heart-racing reading experience combined with an exploration of a skewed human mind, this is the book for you.

In this novella, what would happen if a mafia boss sent one of his best, most loyal men to escort his future wife from Phoenix to Atlanta via Cadillac? A man she specifically requested?

A Border Patrol captain is ordered by his superiors to stand down regarding gun shipments across the border. But when he receives a hot tip from a Mexican contact regarding a gun-runner, he can't just not do his job. On paid leave, he sets up an ambush with a few friends -including an Arizona Ranger and an off-duty deputy sheriff -on a hill overlooking a border road. They expect to thwart the gun-running operation. But it's all a ruse. The gun-runner is hauling human cargo, not guns, and not for the purpose of resettling them in the US. They will be a lesson. The Arizona Ranger, Dale Crowley, recognizes Manuel Vallejo, the gun-runner, as the man who escaped justice years earlier when he raped and beat a young girl. Vallejo peers up at the hill. Somehonw he knows Crowley is there. And he delivers a chilling edict. How far would you go to protect your child?

Aliens and alien invasions take many forms. To the hard-working residents of a newly constructed ant hill, when a massive creature places a size 10 shoe atop their home, the invasion is blatant and destructive. Their children, the zygotes still wrapped in a protective shell, are crushed beneath the surface. They weep. They mourn. They cart off their dead. And they rebuild. There are also other kinds of intra-planetary alien invasions. Every day, every human on Earth is invaded with millions of microbial organisms. All of them hunger for sustenance. All of them feed. But they don't come swooping in from a distant planet in spaceships, so we pay them no mind. Our scientists even label some of them benevolent or beneficial. But what if a group of truly alien microbes alien even to the earth itself came swooping in from another planet? Or farther out? Traveling a vast distance over an incalculable number of years, a massive cloud of microbes enters the solar system. The collective speeds inexorably toward Earth. In the early morning hours of May 20 in the near future it slaps into the Pacific Ocean several miles off the California coast. And billions upon billions of microbes are jarred loose. They awaken from their stasis. They ride the wind and fall to the earth in rain. They flow along in rivers, streams and lakes. Within hours they cover the western United States, western Canada and Mexico. Within days they cross the Atlantic and spread around the world. A new life form? An alien life form? They are not benevolent, and they are not beneficial. They hunger. And they eat. Voraciously. They prefer the warm-bloods. Mammals die within minutes of contact. Including humans. Well, most humans.

An American expatriate takes a chance wandering the streets of a foreign town. He's looking for a contact for a local Resistance group who needs help. These are men who go to the war most days and stay home with their families on other days. These are men who are called on when other men simply will not do.

You've experienced the military and had a gut full. You tried being a cop for awhile, but it just wasn't the same. Finally you opted to drop out, work a mindless, physical job on the docks for awhile. Then there's an incident, and it reminds you who and what you are. Maybe you're only suited for "jobs like that." Maybe the waitress in the local bar is too.