Mind Sleuth

A suspenseful whodunit, where not all the suspects are human. Recently graduated Ruger-Phillips employee, Dr. Sam "Doc" Price, is looking forward to his new project-evaluating training for a team. But it's a team like no other because only one of the team members is human. The other is one of the most intelligent and lethal machines ever built by man - the Joint Aerial Combat Capability (JACC). Loaded with the latest in detection and threat assessment technology, JACC is a silent, deadly military drone. Doc soon discovers, however, that JACC may not be the only killer on the remote, Nevada test range when he finds himself in a cat and mouse game with an unknown adversary. In a fight for his life and the lives of his friends, Doc asks himself, how do you match wits with the mind in the clouds when you're not sure if you're facing the cold, exact logic of machine intelligence or the coldblooded urges of a human killer?

It was spring in the Midwest and the perfect storm was brewing. A scientist of considerable renown, Dr. James Conroy, Jr., was leading a grassroots movement to improve access to medical treatment in the United States. At the same time, a group known as the Crusaders for Common Sense was rallying around the cry, "Stop Playing God with Medicine." Claiming that medical science merely maintained the body while the soul rotted from within, they stood opposed to Conroy-violently opposed. Like most residents of St. Louis, Missouri, Sam "Doc" Price and Nicole Veles watched in horror as the violence escalated. But, after a noted medical researcher was attacked at Nicole's apartment, she and Doc were plunged into a world of domestic terrorism. Doc found an unlikely ally in FBI Special Agent Rebecca Marte. Together, they tried to make sense of the Crusaders' actions that defied all logic. The terrorists showed no fear of identification-or even death. In the end, Doc risked everything he loved in a final, deadly gambit with the Crusaders, only to find that the cost of his ploy may be more than he can pay.

When ex-FBI agent Rebecca Marte considered the possible challenges of her new career as a private investigator, she never thought one of them would be to investigate a witch charged with killing a man during a coven ritual. The job should be easy as six icons of the St. Louis business community, the rest of the coven, had seen their High Priestess, Della Bergeron, standing over the body, covered in blood, declaring she'd kept her promise to be with him to the end. Unfortunately, Rebecca's client wanted the witch cleared. Then, the difficult case became nearly impossible when Bergeron offered her defense. She was innocent by reason of possession. After eliminating every method to coerce another that she understood-death threats to self or family, relentless emotional abuse, reality-altering drugs-Rebecca found herself wondering what dark demons might lay hidden in the witch's mind that took control. Thrust into that uncharted territory, she sought to involve her psychologist friend, Dr. Sam "Doc" Price, both to help her with the case and him with a losing battle to find his kidnapped fiancée.

When Violet Cruz accused U.S. Representative Alan Barclay of being "the spawn of a Martian whore" and took a shot at him, everyone agreed that she was delusional. It was just another conspiracy theory in Washington, DC, where such bizarre claims had become all too common. Tiring of the media harassing the family, however, Cruz's cousin brought the case to Private Investigator Rebecca Marte. She figured that the public was probably right. Rebecca was, however, willing to give the case another look as Cruz's sudden, total break from reality without any apparent cause was almost as strange as her beliefs. With his background in psychology, working with Sam "Doc" Price made sense to Rebecca and she welcomed him as a consultant. But soon, the two, who had worked so well in the past, found themselves at each other's throats. She dropped him from the investigation, but with his "dog with a bone" determination, Doc went on alone. Unfortunately, the now-divided team was going after an adversary more cunning and more ruthless than any they've faced before. If they'd realized the odds of their survival apart, they would have found a way to put their differences aside before it was too late.

Bullied to death in the boardroom? Private Investigator Rebecca Marte doubted it. Since when would the president and CEO of a highly successful company find the criticisms of his subordinates so destructive to his self-image that he would commit suicide? That, however, was what her new client, Nicole Veles, claimed. Nicole painted a toxic, if not criminal, picture of defamation leading up to the man's death. And after his demise, one of his most vocal detractors ascended to his position. That was enough to raise Rebecca's suspicions. She took the job. But as she began her investigation, hints that Nicole's beliefs were tainted by her history became difficult for Rebecca to ignore. Two years earlier, Nicole had been kidnapped, and she still bore the mental and emotional scars of abuse and captivity. She'd cut all connections to her friends and fled her past by relocating to Colorado where no one knew her. She took a job where long-term relationships were impossible, save one stubborn older woman who wouldn't take no for an answer-and who just happened to be the wife of the suicide victim. While everyone else thought the man's death, while tragic, was just the consequence of high-pressure business and depression over the loss of the company he had founded, could Rebecca trust anything to the contrary that her new client told her?