Darkness Falls
by Kyle Mills
from Vanguard Press
The Second Horseman (Fade)
by Kyle Mills
from St. Martin's Paperbacks
Scanlon has uncovered a plot involving a Ukrainian crime organization and the auction of a dozen nuclear warheads. But he can’t convince the government that the $200-million sale isn’t a hoax. So he must find a way to take care of business himself—with Brandon’s help.
Now it’s up to Brandon to pull off a Las Vegas heist that will help Scanlon cough up the cash and get the warheads off the market. With millions of lives in the balance, and dirty deeds and double-crosses in the works, it all depends on one man to do the one thing he knows best: Beat the enemy at its own game.
Fade
by Kyle Mills
from St. Martin's Press
The government turned its back on Salem Al Fayad after the first Gulf War, but now that Homeland Security needs "Fade's" particular skills, they attempt to recruit him again. He's not only not interested, but he's nursing a very big grudge, and the ham-fisted tactics they use to reel him back in don't help defuse his anger. There's a bullet lodged in Fade's spine that could have been removed years ago, but the feds wouldn't pay for it then and it's too late now, so Fade's got nothing to lose but his life, and that's not worth very much to him now. His old friend and teammate Matt Egan tried to help him then, but now he's charged with bringing Fade in, dead or alive. Both Fade and Egan are appealing characters--if there's a villain here, it's Egan's new boss, and Matt is torn between his loyalty to Fade, his duty to a superior officer he despises, and his fears for his own family's safety. Mills expertly ratchets up the tension page by page and chapter by chapter in a better than average thriller marked by fine charicaterizations, superior pacing, and a strong narrative in which the bonds of friendship are brilliantly delineated and the two men at the center of the action linger in the reader's mind after the expectable but still compelling denouement. Mills gets better and better, and Fade is timely enough to break him out of the midlist and win him a new legion of fans. --Jane Adams
Now they're asking for his help.
But they're not going to like his answer.
A secret department of Homeland Security is recruiting agents to work undercover in the Middle East, and the director wants his second-in-command, Matt Egan, to bring aboard an old friend, Salam Al Fayed-better known as Fade.
He seems perfect for the job: A New Yorker and ex-Navy Seal, he is the son of immigrants and he speaks perfect Arabic. Trouble is, he's "retired;" he got shot in the back in the line of duty, and the U.S. government refused to pay for the risky surgery that could have helped him.
Now Fade lives the life of a hermit, walking around with a bullet lodged near his spine and liable to shift at any moment, and the last thing he wants to hear is that his country needs him-least of all, his ex-best friend Matt Egan, whom he sees as responsible for his present condition.
Against Egan's wishes, the director forces the issue and tries none too subtly to "persuade" Fade to join the team. But Fade, angry and hopeless, is prepared to fight back at any cost; the ensuing confrontation is a bloody one. And the chase is on-will Matt be able to find his friend-turned-fugitive before Fade can take the ultimate revenge?
Fade is a remarkable, take-no-prisoners read from an unparalleled writer at the height of his talents.
Sphere of Influence
by Kyle Mills
from Signet
Kyle Mills, New York Times bestselling author of Burn Factor and Storming Heaven, takes his readers on a jagged, heart-pounding hell-ride through every American's worst fear...
The videotapes arrive at television stations across the nation. Their chilling message: Al Qaeda has secured a rocket launcher on American soil. Their potential targets: U.S. civilians. Their ultimate threat: they will attack. Anytime. Anywhere.
Amid national chaos, the FBI calls upon one of its best agents for a final desperate mission. But no one-on either side-realizes how deep or how far the sphere of influence has spread...
Rising Phoenix
by Kyle Mills
from First Harper Paperbacks
Special Agent Mark Beamon is a maverick. His open disdain for the FBI's rules--and Directors--has exiled him to a no-profile post in the boondocks.
But when a shadowy right-wing group starts flooding America's emergency rooms with dead and dying, Beamon is summoned back to Washington. Teamed with an icily efficient female field agent, he is given the thankless task of stopping the slaughter--even though millions of Americans secretly approve of it!
As the body count rises, Beamon realizes there is something eerily familiar about his adversary, reminding him of the coldest killer he ever encountered--not a criminal but a law enforcement colleague. And for the first time, he wonders why he was chosen for this assignment.
Was it his expertise--or his expendability?
"An explosive thriller that launches a new genius for taut, compulsive adventure writing...."
- Tom Clancy
"In the world of political thrillers, I have the feeling that young Kyle Mills will soon be a very big player."
- Frederick Forsythe
"A phenomenal concept....Fascinating....Good conspiracy theory, absolutely!"
- Rush Limbaugh
"Absorbing..A fine thriller with memorable characters and enough twists to keep readers turning pages....Mills is definitely someone to watch."
- Publishers Weekly
"Writing in the Tom Clancy tradition, Kyle Mills has produced a power-packed drama about the men and women who battle the bad guys to protect us all."
- William H. Webster, former director of the FBI and CIA
"[An] exceptionally accomplished debut thriller.A chillingly effective and suspenseful tale, complete with the moral ambiguities and guilty pleasures of such vigilante dreams as Death Wish."
- Kirkus Reviews
"Rising Phoenix is gripping, authentic, and as frightening as a gunshot in the night."
- W.E.B. Griffin
"A seductive action novel....Here's one slick page turner that makes readers think."
- San Francisco Chronicle
Free Fall
by Kyle Mills
from Avon
It's bold. It's dangerous. It's the kind of maverick operation that has made Mark Beamon both the FBI's best agent and its least-likely-to-succeed screw-up.
A top-secret FBI file -- buried in an anonymous government warehouse since J. Edgar Hoover's death -- is missing. The unlucky grad student who uncovered it is dead, and now his ex-girlfriend is on the run, accused of the murder. The only man everyone agrees can find the young woman and turn up the explosive document is "off-duty," suspended and under the threat of prosecution by the bureau itself.
Beamon knows better than anyone that this is his last shot to save his career -- and his country. Tracking the young woman down, though, will be the hardest assignment he's ever tackled, for she's a gutsy world-class rock-climber who can drop out of sight anywhere in the world. And even if he finds her and the file, who can he trust when the FBI itself is under suspicion? Beamon has no room for wrong guesses -- or moves. If he blows this one, he'll free fall straight out of the bureau -- and straight into prison....
Burn Factor
by Kyle Mills
from HarperTorch
Why would the FBI want to cover up a link between five unsolved murders, especially a link as telling as matching DNA recovered from every one of the crime scenes? That's the premise of Kyle Mills's Burn Factor. Instead of his usual hero, FBI agent Mark Beamon, the author introduces Quinn Barry, a relatively low-level analyst for the agency who stumbles across what at first looks like a glitch in the computer's forensics program. But of course it's not--the serial killer protected by the powers that be is a truly mad scientist who's indispensable to the completion of a top-secret weapons project. Quinn, whose lifelong ambition is to move up in the ranks and become a full-fledged FBI agent, is transferred out of her programming job as soon as she brings the link to the attention of superiors. But the plucky woman ignores their warnings and enlists the aid of another scientific genius, who also happens to be the chief suspect in at least one of the gruesome murders she's intent on solving.
Burn Factor is big on implausible and illogical plot twists, and small on characterizations. We never learn enough about Quinn to understand why she puts her career (not to mention her life) in jeopardy, even as evidence of a massive cover-up continues to mount and her boyfriend, a CIA agent, turns out to be a willing accomplice to the conspirator-in-chief. Fans of Mills's previous novels (Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Free Fall) who keep waiting for Beamon to show up and save the day will be disappointed, especially since the author doesn't quite succeed in making Quinn Barry as appealing a protagonist. --Jane Adams
Bright, young, and ambitious, Quinn Barry desperately wants to be an FBI agent, even as she programs databases in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. But Quinn's career -- and her life -- are about to change wildly. Testing a new program, Quinn's computer savvy turns up a mysterious DNA link among five gruesome murders. A link that the old FBI system had been carefully programmed to miss. A link that nearly costs Quinn her job, and soon, her life...Pitted against a conspiracy of unimaginable proportions, Quinn will match wits against powerful government forces that will use any means necessary to keep their dirty secrets hidden -- secrets that will land her in the clutches of a sadistic, brilliant madman who holds the key to it all.
Smoke Screen
by Kyle Mills
from Signet
Through a series of unwanted promotions, Trevor Barnett has become the lead spokesman for the tobacco industry-just as a two-hundred-billion-dollar lawsuit is about to bankrupt it. Now, Big Tobacco is going on the offensive-and Trevor is caught in the crossfire.
Storming Heaven
by Kyle Mills
from Coronet Books
Take one outspoken, sloppy, slightly boozy FBI agent who's too smart for his own good (and never lets the reader forget it) and exile him to a field office in Arizona so he doesn't embarrass the Agency. Tie him to a short tether and bury him in paperwork. Add a double murder and a missing teenager; throw in a little New Age religion (but don't identify it as Scientology, or L. Ron Hubbard's legions will bury you in lawsuits) and you have Kyle Mills's second Mark Beamon thriller. A bit too smug to be likable, Beamon has the case totally figured out before anyone else has a clue. Shortly thereafter, he's pressured to shut down the investigation. When he persists in following a road that leads right to the front door of the powerful Church of the Evolution, he's suddenly targeted by the IRS, labeled a pedophile, and finally suspended. But with the help of an ex-member of the cult, an eager young agent, and a crusty old retired wire tapper, Beamon manages to track down the missing girl and put a crimp in the church's ambitious plans. These include a conspiracy to take over the nation's telecommunications infrastructure and extend the cult's hold over the movers and shakers of the country--including Beamon's boss and other FBI honchos. A tidy little millennial thriller with echoes of Waco, Ruby Ridge, and those comet-happy cultists in San Diego who followed their leader to a higher plane last summer, this should win Mills (author of Rising Phoenix) a legion of new fans. --Jane Adams
Punished for his maverick ways, FBI agent Mark Beamon has been exiled from Washington, D.C., to a sleepy Southwest office where he's got one last chance to play by the rules. But that's not going to happen, not when he's on a case that may be too hot even for his unorthodox talents to handle.
A local millionaire and his wife are brutally murdered. Jennifer, their teenage child and sole heir; is the prime suspect -- and she's gone missing. Laying everything on the line, Beamon sets offon a trail that takes him from a remote survivalist's cabin in the Utah mountains, through the labyrinthine headquarters of a cultlike church, into the shadowy, interlocking boardrooms of a powerful high-tech communications empire.
Just when he thinks he's close to finding answers, Beamon discovers the killing of Jennifer's parents is far more sinister than even he could have guessed. Now he isn't just looking for a young girl -- he's got to stop a bizarre conspiracy that could bring America to its knees...
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