Book Log

The Law at Randado

Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron's men drag two prisoners from Frye's jail and hang them from a high tree, there's nothing the untried young lawman can do about it. But Kirby's got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscles bargained for. They can beat the boy and humilate him, but they can't make him forget the job he has sworn to do. The cattleman has money, fear, and guns on his side, but Kirby Frye's the law in this godforsaken corner of the Arizona Territories. And he'll drag Sundeen and his killers straight to hell himself to prove it.

Tango Midnight

It's 2005, and the world has changed. International terrorists have released a genetically modified disease, called X-Pox, on the world. There is no greater challenge to medicine than finding a cure. Biochem billionaire Tad Mikleszewski (called TM by nearly everyone) is a "space junkie" who has been the primary investor backing the Spacelifter project, a private attempt to build a single-stage to orbit vehicle. But Spacelifter's crucial test firing has failed, and TM is going to pull the plug. He has a better idea for getting himself into space....he'll buy research time on the International Space Station, to work on a cure for X-Pox. The Russians will sell him a seat on the Soyuz taxi vehicle for a mere $30 million.

But the equipment in the Harmony Laboratory module was salvaged from old Russian military labs, and perhaps TM's skills are a little bit out of date. A tiny leak - a small hole in the seal of the isolation box where TM is manipulating the X-Pox pathogen, and Harmony is contaminated by the disease that kills within three weeks.

Now it's a race against time, to rescue the crew and decontaminate the Space Station. NASA has a shuttle a month from launch, and if Astronaut Kelly Gessner can be retrained in decontamination procedures they can push that up two weeks. The Russians have a third Soyuz due off the assembly line, but Astronaut Mark Koskinen, NASA's chief of staff at Star City doesn't think they'll make it in time. But whether Russian or American, someone is going to have to get up there, and fast.

Starhawk

Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins has finally realized her lifelong dream: She’s completed a nerve-bending qualification flight for a pilot’s license.
 
Her timing is far from optimal, however. Faster-than-light travel has only recently become a reality, and the World Space Authority is still learning how to manage long-range missions safely. To make matters worse, efforts to prepare two planets for colonization are killing off native life-forms, outraging people on Earth.
 
So there’s not a lot of demand for space pilots. Priscilla thinks her career may be over before it has begun. But her ambition won’t be denied, and soon she is on the bridge of an interstellar ship, working for the corporation that is responsible for the terraforming.
 
Her working conditions include bomb threats, sabotage, clashes with her employers—and a mission to a world, adrift between the stars, that harbors a life-form unlike anything humanity has ever seen. Ultimately, she will be part of a life-and-death struggle that will test both her capabilities and her character...

The Good Earth

This tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.

Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.

The Lost Constitution

Rare-book expert Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline, the main characters from Back Bay and Harvard Yard, are back for another treasure hunt through time. They have learned of an early, annotated draft of the Constitution, stolen and smuggled out of Philadelphia. The draft’s marginal notes spell out, in shocking detail, the Founders’ unequivocal intentions—the unmistakable meaning of the Bill of Rights. Peddled and purloined, trafficked and concealed for over two centuries, the lost Constitution could forever change America’s history—and its future.

Moreover, Congress is already at war, fighting tooth and claw over the eternally contentious Bill of Rights. When word gets out of the lost draft’s existence, it launches a frenzied search, as both sides of the partisan machine believe it will reinforce their arguments. While battling politicians from both sides of the debate, Peter and Evangeline must get to the document first, because they know that if the wrong people find it, they will burn it, stripping the nation of its constitutional moorings.

The search takes Peter and Evangeline into the rich history of America and New England, from Shays’s Rebellion to the birth of the American industrial revolution to the march of the legendary 20th Maine in the Civil War.

Past and present play off one another as the search for the draft heats up. It finally boils over on the first night of the World Series, at that Mecca of New England, Boston’s fabled Fenway Park, and the truth is finally revealed....

The Collected

A cleaner's tasks are simple: get rid of the body so that it will never be found, and make the scene of the kill look like nothing happened. Rule Number One: Don't get caught. With Jonathan Quinn's career in question, his apprentice Nate has successfully taken on the role of full-fledged cleaner, using Quinn's name to keep the business working seamlessly in case his boss decides to return. But Nate's latest job is not what it seems, and he finds himself on the wrong side of a trap. With Nate suddenly missing, Quinn and his partner Orlando set out to find him, and learn the reasons for Nate's disappearance are more atrocious than they anticipated.

Ir-Religious

Are there any logical reasons to believe in God? Mathematician and bestselling author John Allen Paulos thinks not. In Irreligion he presents the case for his own worldview, organizing his book into twelve chapters that refute the twelve arguments most often put forward for believing in God's existence. The latter arguments, Paulos relates in his characteristically lighthearted style, "range from what might be called golden oldies to those with a more contemporary beat. On the playlist are the firstcause argument, the argument from design, the ontological argument, arguments from faith and biblical codes, the argument from the anthropic principle, the moral universality argument, and others." Interspersed among his twelve counterarguments are remarks on a variety of irreligious themes, ranging from the nature of miracles and creationist probability to cognitive illusions and prudential wagers. Special attention is paid to topics, arguments, and questions that spring from his incredulity "not only about religion but also about others' credulity." Despite the strong influence of his day job, Paulos says, there isn't a single mathematical formula in the book.

Shadow of Betrayal

The meeting place was carefully chosen: an abandoned church in rural Ireland just after dark. For Jonathan Quinn--a freelance operative and professional cleaner--the job was only to observe. If his cleanup skills were needed, it would mean things had gone horribly wrong. But an assassin hidden in a tree assured just that. And suddenly Quinn had four dead bodies to dispose of and one astounding clue--to a mystery that is about to spin wildly out of control.
Three jobs, no questions. That was the deal Quinn had struck with his client at the Office. Unfortunately for him, Ireland was just the first. Now Quinn, along with his colleague and girlfriend--the lethal Orlando--has a new assignment touched off by the killings in Ireland. Their quarry is a U.N. aide worker named Marion Dupuis who has suddenly disappeared from her assignment in war-torn Africa. When Quinn finally catches a glimpse of her, she quickly flees, frantic and scared. And not alone.
For Quinn the assignment has now changed. Find Marion Dupuis, and the child she is protecting, and keep them from harm. If it were only that easy.
Soon Quinn and Orlando find themselves in a bunker in the California hills, where Quinn will unearth a horrifying plot that is about to reach stage critical for a gathering of world leaders--and an act of terror more cunning, and more insidious, than anyone can guess.
Fast, smart, sleek, and stunning, Shadow of Betrayal is vintage Brett Battles: a gritty, gripping masterpiece of suspense, a thriller that makes the pulse pound--and stirs the heart as well.
Fiction 
Thriller 
Mystery 
Suspense 
...more

The Deceived

Unputdownable.” “Brilliant and heart-pounding.” “A tightly written pageturner.” Brett Battles won rave reviews for his debut novel, The Cleaner, which introduced hero Jonathan Quinn. A freelance operative and professional “cleaner”, Quinn knows better than to get emotionally involved in any of his jobs. But in this superb powerhouse of suspense, Quinn’s latest job is different. A friend and old colleague has been murdered. A woman has gone missing. And for Jonathan Quinn, this time it’s personal.
Anonymity. Trust. Professionalism. In his world, Jonathan Quinn has a few rules. He’ll get rid of bodies that have to disappear; nothing ever gets traced back to him. But when Quinn is called to a busy Los Angeles port where a shipping container has just come in from the sea, it’s clear his rules have been violated. Inside the crate is a dead man—a man who once saved Quinn’s life. And while no one knows how former CIA agent Stephen Markoff died, Quinn has to do more than clean. He has to find Markoff’s girlfriend, Jenny. To tell her that Markoff is dead. To find out why—and why someone sent Markoff’s body to him.
Until a week ago, Jenny Fuentes was an assistant to an ambitious congressman. Now Jenny is missing, too, and a lot of man power is making sure she isn’t found. But Quinn has his own man power. He has tools that can pry into secrets held anywhere in the world. He has the skill to trade blows with killers and spies. And he has covert weapons: his eager and smart apprentice, Nate, and brilliant Orlando, his closest friend, who’s saved his life more than once.
Racing from the corridors of power in Washington to the bustling streets of Singapore, Quinn won’t stop until he uncovers the truth behind his friend’s violent death, the astounding reason Jenny has vanished—and what she knows about the most explosive deception of all.

The Cleaner

Meet Jonathan Quinn: a freelance operative with a take-no-prisoners style and the heart of a loner. His job? Professional "cleaner." Nothing too violent, just disposing of bodies, doing a little cleanup if necessary. 

But in Brett Battles's electrifying debut novel, Quinn's latest assignment will change everything, igniting a harrowing journey of violence, betrayal, and revenge.

The job seemed simple enough: investigating a suspicious case of arson. But when a dead body turns up where it doesn't belong, and Quinn's handlers at "the Office" turn strangely silent, he knows he's in over his head.

With only a handful of clues, Quinn scrambles for cover, struggling to find out why someone wants him dead . . . and if it's linked to a larger attempt to wipe out the Office.

Quinn's only hope may be Orlando, a woman from his past who's reluctant to help but who may hold the key to solving the case.

Suddenly the two are prying into old crimes, crisscrossing continents, struggling to stay alive long enough to unbury the truth.

But as the hunt intensifies, Quinn is stunned by what he uncovers: a chilling secret . . . and a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy, with an almost unimaginable goal.

Furiously paced, filled with superbly drawn characters and pitch-perfect dialogue, The Cleaner puts a powerful twist on all our expectations as it confirms Brett Battle's place as one of the most exciting new talents in suspense fiction today.

The Light of Other Days

When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses the cutting edge of quantum physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times: around every corner, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden, and even intimate moments. It amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy--forever.

Then, as society reels, the same technology proves able to look backwards in time as well. What happens next is a story only Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter could tell. The Light of Other Days is a novel that will change your view of what it is to be human.

Lolita

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.