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As sheriff of a small Nevada town near Las Vegas, Porter Beck spends most of his time on trivial crimes — until a retired FBI agent is found tortured and murdered. Within hours, a gorgeous (of course) female FBI agent shows up and confides that the dead man had been gathering information on a KGB spy who stole secrets from a Nevada test site 60 years earlier.\u00a0 It seems the Russian, who was supposedly killed in a nuclear accident, may not be dead after all, and he\u2019s living in Beck\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
So Beck has to find the aging Russian before the assassin does. He\u2019s aided not only by the glamorous FBI woman but also his sister, a crack shot, and his father, the former sheriff, who is suffering from dementia.\u00a0 Beck\u2019s suffering from his own ailment, an eye disease that makes it hard for him to see at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bitter Past\u201d is the first in a series featuring Beck, a former army espionage expert who once lived in Russia.<\/p>\n
Imagine there is a coup to take over the White House, and members of the Secret Service are part of it. Who do you trust? Well, Agent Eric Hill\u00a0 He\u2019s jaded, disgraced and ready to quit, but when the White House is under siege, he joins the president and first lady as they are rushed to an impregnable bunker in a granite mountain known as Raven Rock.<\/p>\n
Hill doesn\u2019t know who the enemy is. Some of his agents are involved in the coup, but which ones? What about his partner, Amber Cody? Even the president could be making a power grab and orchestrating the conspiracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cInside Threat\u201d is a fast-paced thriller, with Hill and Cody fighting their way through the maze of structures that make up Raven Rock.<\/p>\n
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Alex has never gotten along with his father, Eddy. So when Eddy is murdered, Alex is the primary suspect.\u00a0 He admitted he and his street-wise friend Sami were responsible for a robbery scheme gone wrong and were sent to prison. Now, released after seven years in prison, Alex is not so sure he really is guilty of his father\u2019s death.\u00a0 Eddy was alive when Alex, kneeling over the body, heard someone approaching and ran off.\u00a0 Now, he sets out to find the truth and free Sami, who is still incarcerated.<\/p>\n
The animosity between father and son accelerated after the two moved back to Paris following 10 years in the U.S. Once a crusading journalist, Eddy becomes a drunk who spent his time dredging up notes from past stories. Alex had trouble fitting into school and, in an attempt to make friends, he sold drugs provided through Sami, a hustler Alex met on the streets.\u00a0 The drugs were bad, and Alex was left owing money to both the dealer and the buyer. Since he no longer had access to his father\u2019s money, Alex cooked up the robbery scheme. Arrested, he blamed Sami, who got the longer jail sentence.<\/p>\n
In his quest for the truth, Alex exposes secrets of his father\u2019s old friends, while facing danger from Sami\u2019s underworld as well as thugs who warn him to \u201cstop sticking your nose where it\u2019s not wanted.\u201d Of course, Alex doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n