Bøger af Walter Rice

Harry Hall kills people for a paycheck. He did it for the government, and now he does civilian contracts for a wealthy Hollywood film investor. When Hall is sent to his home state of Kansas, the job looks fairly ordinary. But when the target is revealed, he rebels. This is one hit he can't possibly make. He's confused and angry and sets out to find the truth and make his own justice. Then suddenly he realizes he's been crossed up-he's not the only hit man in town. Besides saving his own skin, Hall is forced to decide between a woman in LA he wants to love and a woman in Kansas he could love again.

A truck cuts off Clay Sutler on his Seattle commute, but his complaint only gets him mixed up with Tara and her brilliant, scheming mind. Clay has a lot in common with Tara, mainly Montana, where his parents died too early and where he never wants to go back. But his hometown is exactly where Tara wants him to go and solve her cousin's cold case murder. Now Tara even makes him a suspect in a police database while she chips away at his resistance. Clay does his best to sidestep Tara's maneuvers, seductive and otherwise, but he can't keep his girlfriend Francie out of Tara's grasp. While he fights for his own stability and leans on a wise inner voice named Doc, questions about Tara's sanity threaten to undercut his own fragile progress. Then, one fateful weekend, Tara prevails and the killer emerges in Clay's Montana town. In a swirl of a secret liaison, family tragedies and cracked football dreams, Clay puts it all together and orchestrates justice in the town he tried to leave behind.

Prison is for the guilty - and sometimes the innocent.Mitch Souder is a black science teacher serving a 25-year term for the murder of a white high school girl. He maintains his innocence and refuses to show remorse for a crime he insists he didn't commit.Ten years into his sentence at the age of thirty-eight, Souder learns that his prison has to close because it's a health hazard. Over several months, inmates are moved to other facilities, but Souder remains. When almost all the cells are empty, the warden tells Souder his fate is different. He becomes the last prisoner.After thinking his appeals and protests have gone nowhere, Souder gets a second chance. The governor, a former prosecutor, has found problems with Souder's trial and so had arranged a special kind of parole. If Souder stays out of trouble for ninety days, his sentence will be commuted. If not, he'll go back to prison.Souder has two college degrees and would love to teach again, but that's not the arrangement. Instead, he will be a barber, just as he has been in prison. He needs a job, and this is the offer.He enjoys his freedom but adjusting is difficult. After his wife left him years ago, he finds a woman to love again but can't bear to tell her he's done time. Then there's the job, which is doable but doesn't pay enough to keep him afloat, even in his meager studio apartment with its peeling paint. Christmas is coming up fast, and he fears he'll be laid off and become homeless.Then two people he thought he could trust offer him a way out. Big money is the payoff, but he'd have to become a criminal to get it. This is Souder's pivotal moment. After years of maintaining he's not a killer, would he commit a felony to achieve financial stability and a decent life?The answer seems to be a simple yes or no, but what if Souder could find a third way? As he deals with real crime, he finds himself involved with law enforcement, a sultry singer, politicians, millionaires and powerful lawyers. Justice is the ultimate prize, if he can seize it.# # #Excerpt from Chapter 14: Souder's legs carried him back to his apartment without much thought. That was good because his mind was occupied with figuring out how to survive December after he got laid off. Then he'd have to survive January without a job. No, that had to be nonsense. Surely he could pick up something, even part time. Something manual maybe.He wasn't especially muscular but he was strong enough. He was able bodied. He could lift heavy boxes, bags of cement, iron bars, whatever. And if he weren't tied down at the barber shop, he'd have more time to look for work.Vikki wasn't going to like the layoff. No way would she take that well. So he thought he probably wouldn't tell her right away. No need to worry her now because he might find other work in the meantime. Then the color of his money would be all the same.He visualized those heavy boxes someone was going to pay him to lift. Sure, he could do that awhile, but it wasn't a future. He was thirty-eight now and had at least another twenty-five years of some kind of work. But heavy boxes? Even before his hair turned gray his back would have gone out. And then what?Well, for one thing there was Randy's offer. Two hundred thousand sounded out of this world. Souder could see himself going to the gym and building up his back muscles. He could buy a car, take Vikki to a movie, to dinner. He could live like a real person.If he didn't get caught.But how could he give in now and risk losing the chance to have his sentence commuted and going back to prison? And it wouldn't be the dearly departed Bellwood State Penitentiary. It would be a different prison, presumably without asbestos, but a place he didn't know and with people and dangers he couldn't predict

In the mystery novel Smarty Havarti, Jason Stallings has a job to do, but problems keep coming up. The American account executive goes to Denmark to fix a thorny business issue, then finds out his trip is much more than a sales call.Situation: - Body in hotel room. Check. - Beautiful women. Check. - Willful violations of business deal. Check. - A spy who doesn't love him. Check. - People pretending to be someone else. Check. - A whole lot of folks having trouble doing the right thing. Check.Jason Stallings knows how to do the right thing.Sometimes people cry, but he can be very persuasive, even with the police.

A man can't stop digging holes in the ground and doesn't know why-until at last he comes face to face with deadly secrets. Jim Lassiter is an intelligent guy who makes his living writing software, but he becomes obsessed with digging, and he just keeps on digging It's insane. Or maybe not. Something traumatic happened to him nine years earlier. He can't remember what. So he keeps digging until he finds the truth. Then he's in real trouble. He could use some help. Grab a shovel