Bøger af Gary Paul Corcoran

The year is 2012, the location, the mountains of northern Iraq and Army Ranger Blake Peters, the leader of an elite strike force, has just risked his career by saving a band of Kurdish soldiers from certain slaughter at the hands of the Turks. With the Kurdish soldiers safely on the Iraqi side of the border, Captain Peters stands face to face with Colonel Arslan, the commander of the Turkish patrol, his refusal to turn the rebel Kurds over to his Turkish counterpart an act of betrayal that Colonel Arslan vows one day to avenge.Three years later, Captain Peters is now retired and on a completely unauthorized special ops mission into war torn Syria. An ISIS thug named Saleem al-Ramadi has beheaded someone dear to Blake and Blake has gone there to seek his revenge. When Blake's CIA contact teams him up with a Kurdish guide named Faisal, Blake cannot help but fear the worst. Colonel Arslan's parting threat still rings in his ears. The last thing Blake needs is a Kurd bringing him unwanted attention. Worse still, as a refugee and once college professor, Faisal appears to be totally incapable of using a gun.In what evolves into a touching odd-couple/buddy story and tale of redemption, Blake's mission has long descended into an orgy of blood, death and destruction by the time he learns that Faisal's entire family has also been brutally murdered by Saleem, with his wife and daughter having been used first as chattel by all of Saleem's men. So why isn't Faisal filled with hatred and revenge like me, Blake is left to wonder? From the tragic young woman that Blake vows to rescue back in Istanbul, down through the war torn devastation of Syria and on to the moment when Colonel Arslan believes he will have his revenge, The Twelfth Commandment takes you on a spellbinding journey, with Blake's feverish search to find Saleem stripping him of his own humanity, but with Faisal's long suffering wisdom becoming Blake's touchstone, a thread by which he claws his way back from his personal descent into hell.

Wildfires are raging all over the LA basin and the end of times seem to be near. Or so Michael Devlin finds himself thinking the day that Lila Evergreen walks into his office. But one look at her and the whole world can spin off its axis for all he cares. So much beauty. Rescue seems imminent. In learning of Lila's runaway daughter, Holly, Michael naturally takes the bit and sets off on a quest to find her, a search that promptly uncovers a dark secret in Lila's past while hurtling Michael down the rabbit hole of white supremacist conspiracy. Donald Ray Potter, the messiah of a local QAnon chapter, is holding Holly hostage and readying a battleplan to take down the deep state. Michael quickly zeros in on Potter's location, only to have him disappear in a shootout with the local police, with Holly nowhere to be found and a young woman's dead body uncovered in the woods behind Potter's old house. Another wild ride is thus set in motion through the toni haunts and seamy underbelly of Southern California, with many of the familiar faces from South On Pacific Coast Highway making an encore, including Jim Harrison, Michael's laconic southern attorney, Detective Whalen, Michael's grudging ally, Kenny, his wry background researcher, and Dirk Vanderhof, whose money has bought him an early release from prison but not an end to Michael's relentless efforts to put Dirk back behind bars. A host of new characters also take center stage, like Michael's comically paranoid jeweler friend, Sal, a Mexican biker named El Chango, who wants Potter's head, FBI Agent Alessandra Barretta, Michael's serendipitous love interest, and old man Huntington, Michael's world-weary billionaire client and symbol of a dying world order. Above all, Caitlin finally returns to Michael's life, to both delight and frustrate him with her clinical depression. Throughout the story, as a slew of colorful characters and nefarious deeds crisscross his trail, Michael remains obsessed with learning the identity of the poor young woman Potter has murdered. Fearing it is old man Huntington's missing daughter, Charlotte, Michael is in a race against time, trying to bring Holly back home safely and prove against every shred of evidence to the contrary that Charlotte is still alive.

A young rebel. A beautiful, brilliant and vivacious college professor. A star-crossed tale of love, betrayal and ultimate redemption. The Last Love of Eleanor Sands begins when Roger, as a boy of fourteen, meets Eleanor at his eldest brother's wedding. Serendipitously, Eleanor and Roger cross paths again two years later, and again two years hence, Roger further swept away by this enchanting older woman with every encounter, but never quite able to summon the requisite courage to confess his true desires. Fast forward another two years and Roger is now a confident young man, returning from his vagabond adventures and determined to fulfill his long-suppressed passions. Fortuitously, he finds that Eleanor is recently divorced and a torrid romance ensues, with Eleanor playing the exotic courtesan to Roger's errant prince, their love affair animated by a timeless kinship of spirit, a kinship, it would seem, that nothing could ever tear asunder. Inescapably, though, the instincts of nature take hold and Roger abandons Eleanor for a younger woman, only to be frustrated in his efforts to replicate the magic they had once shared. And thus drawn back repeatedly to the sanctuary of Eleanor's intelligence and worldly counsel, he renders his young lover an unwitting participant in this secretive ménage à trois, a deception that, when revealed, leads to tragic consequences for all concerned. Perhaps such love affairs are forever destined to be undone by the vagaries of time, but in this bittersweet tale, Eleanor and Roger find themselves lasting soulmates, something that not even time itself can steal from their hearts. 'Charming, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measures...' critics say of The Last Love of Eleanor Sands. '...for those who find themselves intrigued by the thought of a cross generation romance, look no further'.

It is the end of the sixties, a decade marred by the Vietnam War, assassinations, student protests and the civil rights struggle, but a decade equally distinguished by peace and love, a celebration of newfound freedoms and great achievements, like mankind's first landing on the moon. For Clay Matthews, the quixotic hero of The Trip Into Milky Way, these shifting tides of history come to a head when a draft notice arrives in the mail, the destiny of his life irreversibly altered when he decides not to report for induction, the tale of his life transformed into the 'other side of Vietnam' and what happens to a young man who refuses to die for his country. Just as a generation was forever defined by that misguided war, Clay's solitary journey into manhood is hurtled down an alternative path by his principled decision to avoid it. From the enchanted shores of Hawaii to a sojourn along the deserted beaches of Mexico to a star-crossed love affair and ultimate incarceration in a Mexican prison, a host of colorful sixties characters join Clay along the way, like Stan, the world weary 'Nam chopper pilot, Faith, an expatriate slumming in sleepy San Blas, Jijiwa, a Papago shaman and Eric, a Bhagavad-Gita toting friend from Clay's past, each of them playing a role in his ongoing quest for enlightenment. The Trip Into Milky Way. An epic adventure and haunting romance that together lead to a heartfelt conclusion.

The first in a series of throwback crime novels, inspired by the Phillip Marlowe's and Sam Spades of the author's youth, Michael Devlin, the jaded protagonist and private detective of South On Pacific Coast Highway is himself a throwback private detective, preferring brains over gadgetry as he operates a one-man shop out of the sleepy little beach town of Laurel Lagoon. Slumming his way among the sometimes seedy, sometimes tony but always alluring venues of the Southern California coastline, Michael doggedly attempts to solve four murders, free a wrongly imprisoned friend and wrest spiritual enlightenment from a handful of better forgotten dreams. He has one clue to guide him, the final cryptic words of a dying man. "My wife Audrey, she knows the..." That leads Michael on a chase to find Audrey, her mane of long red hair a talisman to the woman Michael once loved. Add for a backdrop two pain in the ass Feds, a hardnosed cop, a billionaire online gambling mogul, a couple of nasty boys from south of the border, a Russian thug named Boris, a fortune teller, along with a miniature poodle named Butch and you have the ingredients for a haunting love story and a searing portrait of life along the Southern California coast.