Clyde Barr

Hailed by the bestselling writer William Kent Krueger as "the year's best thriller debut," this rollercoaster read features a Jack Reacher-like drifter protagonist with lethal skills whose mission to rescue his abducted sister pits him against a meth kingpin seeking to control all the trade in the Western United States. Sixteen years. That's how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado's thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he's back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him. By the light of a flickering campfire, Clyde received a frantic phone call for help from Jen, the youngest of his three older sisters. Then the line goes dead. Clyde doesn't know how much time he has. He doesn't know where Jen is located. He doesn't even know who has her. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her. Tagging along with Clyde on this strange, desperate, against-all-odds rescue mission is a young woman named Allie whose motivations for hurtling into harm's way are fascinatingly complex. As the duo races against the clock, it is Allie who gets Clyde to see what he has become and what he can be.

Clyde Barr, the drifter with lethal skills, is alone again, wandering the highways of the American West in search of something to believe in. As summer turns to autumn, he trades his car for a horse and heads for the mountains, planning to clear his head and regain his edge with some hunting. But when he runs across an elderly sick man-a Ute Indian from a nearby reservation-Clyde's dream of solitude is quickly dashed. On the reservation, Clyde finds the old man's daughter, Lawana, as well as a group of menacing bikers called the Reapers running wild in the economically depressed, half-abandoned village. Gripped by the desire to do good in a bleak world, Clyde offers to stay on Lawana's ranch to help out until her father is released from the hospital. He controls himself around the bikers, even when he sees them harass a few Native American women-but when the Reapers attack a local boy Clyde has to do something. As tensions rise between the locals and the Reapers, Clyde's efforts to protect the reservation become a fight for his and Lawana's lives. And then the stakes ratchet up even more. A Promise to Kill is the edge-of-the-seat sequel to Nothing Short of Dying.