Harker Files

Chasing a scoop on the CIA, a reporter finds his own name on the hit list. In Madison, Wisconsin, a dairy farmer drops dead of a heart attack. A few days later, a small-town citizen in Iowa is killed in a three-car pile-up. Few men know the connection between these deaths, and only one is willing to talk to Harker, an investigative reporter with sources on the inside of every agency in Washington. His source at the CIA is named Trotman, and he knows things that men cannot discuss in the light of day. The two dead men were CIA agents, defectors from Communist states living under assumed names. Trotman tells Harker not out of civic duty, but because the reporter will be one of the next to die. Getting the story of this terrifying conspiracy down in print is Harker's only chance for survival. He must work quickly to stay alive, but that's no problem. Reporters like Harker love deadlines.

To protect the families of missing veterans, Harker could go missing himself. The US Army is out of Vietnam, but not all of its boys made it home. Thousands remain unaccounted for, and as the years go on, their families hold out hope that somewhere in the jungle, their boys survive. Harker, an investigative reporter, has uncovered a sickening scheme designed to prey on that misguided hope. A group of con men is going to the homes of missing soldiers, telling families that their GI is trapped in a secret Vietnamese prison, and can return home for a small ransom. When the family forks over the money, they disappear. Harker has exposed the con, and now he wants to punish those responsible.  The mastermind is an unscrupulous security contractor named D. Z. Vale, who backs up his despicable scheme with a private army and an unlimited cache of ammunition. Harker has his typewriter, and it's the only weapon he'll need.

When his source is murdered, Harker knows he's on the right track. Finally, Harker has a break in the nuclear story. There is a vast conspiracy inside the government to keep the dangers of nuclear energy from the public, and now he has a source on the inside. Anna Alexander, an employee at a nuclear firm, has documents that will blow the industry wide open, if she can make it to her rendezvous with Harker alive. Her employers are poisoning her with plutonium, and when she calls Harker, she is nearly dead from radiation sickness. By the time he makes it to Nevada, she's gone. The car wreck looks like an accident, but the papers she was bringing him are nowhere to be found. They killed Anna to keep her from talking to the press, so just imagine what they'll do to the reporter.

Harker uncovers a cult whose members believe in peace, love, understanding, and torture. Rudolph Franklin thinks his biggest problem is reelection. A battle with a fellow senator about military spending is getting ugly, and if he can't scrap out a victory, his career will be dead in the water. He calls Harker, a crack investigative reporter, to leak a story for him. Franklin thinks his problems are political, until his daughter disappears.  In Barbarann's bedroom, Harker finds pamphlets for the Children's Crusade, a hippy-dippy cult best known for selling buttons and hard candy on street corners. But Harker learns about the crusade's darker side, the enforcers charged with keeping members in line, and keeping the press from asking questions. His first warning is a dead cat, hung from the ceiling of his hotel room, paw sliced off. If he crosses the Crusade again, the next paw they take will be his own.

Meet Harker, an investigative reporter willing to do whatever it takes to break a story-even if it might break him first . . . The Harker File: A CIA agent knows the cause behind mysterious deaths in Wisconsin and Iowa-and their connection to Communist Russia. But getting the scoop means Harker will be the next to die . . . Dead and Paid For: A group of con men are preying on the families of US soldiers who are missing in action in Vietnam. Harker's out to uncover the truth without going missing himself . . . They've Killed Anna: In this Edgar Award finalist, a vast government conspiracy is hiding the dangers of nuclear energy from the public. Harker's source is about to help him break the story-when she suddenly dies. Now the journalist will need to watch his back . . . Kill the Reporter: Harker is helping a California senator search for his missing daughter-only to draw the ire of a religious cult hell-bent on silencing him.