Showing results by author "Blair Howard" in All Categories

It was April 1, 1998, when the bodies of two teenagers, a young fella and his girlfriend - both high school seniors - were found among the trees on a lonely road just inside the city limits. The bodies had been stripped and left for the wild animals to...well, you get the idea. The cops had a good idea who the killer was, but they never could prove it, so the case went cold until April 1, 2012, when local DA, Larry Spruce, asked me to take a look at it.

No one could figure out exactly why Sandra McDowell had to die. What was her connection to the Raven, an aging hit man 20 years on death row with only days left to live? Clues are plentiful, but all are dead ends. The Raven is a mind-bending mystery thriller, a twister of a tale that will keep you up listening long into the night. You can’t hear just one! Join Harry Starke as he tries to unravel the nightmare world of...The Raven.

It was a bad day all round for Tommy Biscotti and his friends. All Tommy wanted were a few pills. What he got was a bullet in the back. Hammerhead, Tommy’s source, got two in the head. Jake Burke, Hammerhead’s sidekick, got his brains blown out. Pretty standard stuff for the low lives of the underworld. But what did it all have to do with Senator Andrew Hawke’s run for governor? Who is the assassin?

Commodore Richard Morian and the crew of the Avenger find themselves at the forefront of the battle against the Blues. As they face off against unimaginable foes and navigate treacherous political waters, they must rely on their wits, their courage, and their trust in each other to survive. With new technology, advanced weaponry, and a fierce determination to protect their home planet and the galaxy at large, the Avenger is ready to take on almost any challenge.

There’s a serial killer on the loose! It’s not Kate Gazzara’s first rodeo, but this one is…different. Four young women, all with their throats cut, all with different backgrounds. What’s the connection? Is there one? And then there are the feathers. What do they mean? Kate is under pressure to solve this one quickly, but there are no leads and no suspects, just…the feathers.

Commodore Richard Morian’s mission is to capture the Imperator, but it will take a planetary invasion on a grand scale to do so, a battle fought in space, in the air, and on the ground. And all this to a backdrop of political intrigue that threatens to bring the entire Sovereign system down.

The USF has assembled the largest battle fleet in its history as they prepare for the inevitable cataclysmic battle with the Swarm. Avenger, a Class C heavy battle cruiser, is sent on an urgent rescue mission to the planet Typhon in the Eta Persei star system. A planet devastated and left desolate at the beginning of the war against the Swarm, an alien invader from another reality. Their intent? The total eradication of the human race from the galaxy. What they find on Typhon could change the outcome of the war.

A secret plot to start a war. Two old enemies who must work together to foil it. Under any other circumstances, hired assassin Cassandra Wu would be trying to kill her partner. But that’ll have to wait. Right now, they need to stop a war. After escaping US custody in a deadly battle that leaves three FBI agents dead and another wounded, Wu is kidnapped by The Peacemakers, a Deep State organization dedicated to achieving peace on Earth. Unfortunately, to bring that about they must initiate WWIII and Wu must assassinate an impossible target: the Russian president.

Kate had no idea what she was letting herself in for when she answered the call that Monday morning. The brutal murder of Cameron Geffner started her along a trail more complex and shocking than any case she'd handled in her long career as a homicide detective. That and the turmoil in her personal life will test her skills and fortitude like never before.

On a cold morning in October, 1987, Ohio State Patrol Officer Dan Walker finds an odd box on a quiet, county road. Twenty-five years later, in 2012, and more than 600 miles away, a young woman vanishes without a trace and another is found dead from what appears to be an overdose. In 2015, street-smart Lieutenant Kate Gazzara is suddenly transferred to the Cold Case Squad and assigned her first case. But as she painstakingly goes over the file she discovers a connection to all three incidents. Is there a serial killer on the loose, one who has been killing for almost three decades?

During the last few days of the Civil War, a company of Confederate raiders rode into the small Kansas town of Elbow. There they raped, pillaged and murdered among the local populace, thus triggering a chain of events and a chase that extended for more than 1,000 miles across the grasslands and mountains of Kansas and the deserts of New Mexico.

In Liar Liar, Book 8 in the Harry Starke Genesis series, PI Harry Starke is tasked with solving the ten-year-old cold case of Brice Manning, a nineteen-year-old university student whose death was declared a suicide by the police. But Harry, skeptical at first, soon realizes that the case isn’t as simple as it seems, and that the people closest to Brice may be hiding some dark secrets. As he delves deeper, Harry uncovers a web of lies and deceit that will leave you on the edge of your seat.rilling ride from start to finish.

What happened to Father Marty, a wealthy and corpulent priest...and why is he dead? Did Father Paul play a role in the death of his mentor? If so, what role was it, and did he know he played a part? Was it an accidental death, or worse...premeditated murder? Detective Kate Gazzara doesn't want this case, but her boss, Chief Johnston, wants it closed...and quickly.

Nobody knows what horrors Nicolette Percy endured the night she was murdered. Kate Gazzara caught the case and at first she thought it would be a quick and easy closer. She was wrong. With every passing day, the case became more complex. And then she made a mistake that almost cost her her career....

Five years after physicist Mark Holder discovered the Slipstream Drive in 2058, humanity reached for the stars and began to colonize the galaxy. For centuries, humans continued to populate system after system without encountering intelligent alien life. Some twelve hundred years later, after many generations of relative peace, in the year 3278, human space is invaded by a powerful and mysterious enemy. To these invaders the very concept of free will is heresy. Their crusade—to eradicate humanity. The war begins, and the fight for the survival of the human race is on.

Emily Johnston is GONE. She’s been GONE for more than a week. She’s also the daughter of Harry Starke’s one-time boss and nemesis, Chattanooga Police Chief Wesley Johnston. Harry and Chief Johnston haven’t seen eye-to-eye in a long time, but when Johnston needs help, he knows there’s only one man he can turn to. But Johnston’s jurisdiction ends at the city limits, and when Emily’s body is discovered in a remote part of the county, Harry has to deal with the imperious sheriff Israel Hands and two incompetent county detectives.

Every cop has an unsolved case they can’t let go. Georgina Harrison was mine. I can’t tell you why. Maybe it was because she was just a teenager that it stuck in my craw. Maybe it was because I was still a rookie when I accompanied Harry Starke to the crime scene that God-awful day. Maybe it was all of those things, but try as I might to move on, I couldn’t. And every year I opened the case file, flipped through it, and then closed it again. This time, though, I won't quit until Georgina gets the justice she deserves.

It was one of those beautiful, balmy days on Calypso Key in the US Virgin Islands. The sky was blue and a cool breeze was blowing in off the ocean as Harry and Amanda took their vows. All of their friends were there and all was well with the world…and then the sky fell. Harry draws the line at getting involved when the death of one of his father’s friends intrudes upon his wedding day, until he finds out he owes the girl’s father a debt he can never repay. And so he is dragged into an investigation of not just one murder, but two—and the wealthiest, most dysfunctional family he’s ever met.

Chickamauga: A Novel of the American Civil War is the story of a great battle of the Civil War and the people who fought it, many of them real and some of them the product of the author’s imagination. Chickamauga is a story of the heroism, selflessness, and frailty of the men whose deeds are etched forever on the fields and forests at Chickamauga, the River of Death. Chickamauga is the story of the generals who planned the grand strategies that would be played out by lesser but braver men.

Harry Starke loves a cold case, but this one is really cold, more than a hundred years cold. Family Matters is a tale that takes place on the lonely coast of Maine, where Amanda, a true believer in the paranormal, has inherited—you guessed it—a haunted house. At least that’s what the rumors say. It all begins when Amanda inherits the house, substantial assets, and a large sum of money from her grandmother. The windfall comes with a request to look into the disappearance of Elizabeth, Amanda’s great-great-grandmother, more than a hundred years ago.