DEA Agent Hector Ramirez is on his first undercover mission. He’s been sent to a Buddhist monastery deep in the woods of Maine, where he’s investigating a confusing web of connections between a Peruvian drug gang, a prominent Mormon family and the monastery’s leaders. Dallin Rigby, the young son of a prominent Mormon family, has been sent on a year-long retreat while the scandal associated with his mission to Peru dies down. The men, the sex, the blackmail tape—there’s a lot to get past. He’s not looking forward to a year in the middle of nowhere, but the presence of the attractive Brother Hector might make his time in exile more bearable. No one at the isolated monastery is aware of the disaster unfolding outside its walls, as a man-made virus sweeps the globe, killing nearly everyone. Cut off from his contacts, and with dwindling supplies, Hector sets out with Dallin to learn what has happened. As the attraction between the two men grows, Hector begins to question the necessity of remaining undercover. But is it too late for him to finally be honest with Dallin, about his job and about himself?

Frank and Joe are sent to find the missing son of a UN Ambassador.

A mission for ATAC has Frank and Joe Hardy traveling the world. The teenage son of a prominent mid-eastern diplomat has gone missing on the Caribbean island of St. John, and the boys take off to find him. Turns out he's been kidnapped by a group involved in a scheme to rob a sunken Spanish galleon of its treasures and sell them on the black market. Frank and Joe search high and low--fighting thugs and sharks--for clues. When the Hardys finally find their quarry, there's another problem --he turns out to be the mastermind of the ring, not its victim!

The literature of larceny welcomes a newcomer with some serious chops, as Steven M. Thomas muscles his way to a place at the table–elbow-to-elbow with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen–courtesy of a harrowing, hilarious, two-fisted, hard-boiled thriller that’s pure heaven for anyone who loves a hell of a crime novel. Robert Rivers is a crook. No excuses, no apologies. Breaking the law is his calling, crime is his rush, capers his reason for getting up in the morning and staying up late at night. But he’s a thief with honor, plotting and pulling off carefully choreographed heists where no shots are fired, no blood is spilled, and nobody gets hurt . . . except in the wallet. After a brief stint behind bars back in the day, he’s managed to carve out a comfortable existence, cheerfully plundering the sunny Southern California community whose streets he tools in the tweaked-out Cadillac DeVille that’s his pride and joy. But now Rob (whose name has become ironic) is pushing forty, and–like his trusty partner, Switch, who’s got a pregnant girlfriend and a hefty stash of loot–he’s thinking about quitting the game. But then he and Switch, pulling their latest Butch and Sundance, score a payday that could end up costing them plenty. Inside a strongbox packed with greenbacks rests a disturbing black-and-white photo of a beautiful young girl, eyes full of fear as naked as she is. It’s an image that Rob can’t shake, and a wake-up call: There are rules even he won’t break. It’s also his one-way ticket into the underbelly of the underworld–a lethal landscape of sex slaves, sadistic psychopaths, and sawed-off shotguns, where honor is for fools, and trust is for suckers, where very bad people do even worse things and nice guys don’t finish at all. They just get finished off. With its alluring setting, quirky characters, and restrained and subtle prose, Criminal Paradise has something for every thriller fan. And with sharp natural instincts and writing skills as serious as his humor is sly, Steven M. Thomas shows as much promise as any author on the suspense scene.

In 2014, Fernando Fernandez, P.I. found out some rather inconvenient information about his father-in-law's murder. As his 10 years of wedded bliss largely relied on his leaving this matter alone, this put him in a difficult situation. At the time, Fernandez was a respected and sought after investigator who had dealt with every type of case imaginable. His big break started came 2008, when he defied his world-famous mentor and surprisingly received a flood of international work as a result. Then his caseload turned upside down: - A drug lackey dying in a hospital and the family that required proof of his illness - A missing airplane in the Caribbean with a story more interesting than any cargo - A dead foreigner with no identifying papers, and no one to claim his body. With an office crew as interesting as his cases, Fernandez plowed through his work with zeal and passion, until he had to face his father-in-law's murder again. Now more than 20 years cold, the case lay forgotten in the vaults of some police warehouse, and his wife no longer wanted to know anything about it. Would she agree to let him reopen the case? Will he be able to find the truth?

Life is good for eighteen-year-old Franklin. He lives on the spectrum, structuring and organizing his days, avoiding messy situations and ambiguity. But what he really wants is a boyfriend. Twenty-one-year-old Patrick has a past he can’t seem to shake, and a sexual identity that’s hard to describe—or maybe it’s just evolving. When a manmade virus sweeps the globe, killing nearly everyone, the two young men find themselves thrust together, dependent on each other for survival. As they begin to rebuild their world, their feelings for each other deepen. But Franklin needs definition and clarity, and Patrick’s identity as asexual—or demisexual, or grey ace?—isn’t helping. These two men will need to look beyond their labels if they are going to find love at the end of the world.

Over the past 75 years, gays and lesbians have experienced tremendous social change in America. Gay and lesbian culture, once considered a twilight world that could not be spoken of in daylight, has become today’s rainbow families, marriage equality victories, and record-breaking pride celebrations. For a medium-size Rust Belt city with German Protestant roots, Milwaukee was an unlikely place for gay and lesbian culture to bloom before the Stonewall Riots. However, Milwaukee eventually had as many—if not more—known LGBT+ gathering places as Minneapolis or Chicago, ranging from the back rooms of the 1960s to the video bars of the 1980s to the guerrilla gay bars of today.