Showing results by narrator "Tom Taylorson" in All Categories

In Archer Mayor’s intriguing new Vermont-based mystery, The Orphan’s Guilt, a straightforward traffic stop snowballs into a homicide investigation after Joe Gunther and his fellow investigators peel back layer upon layer of history and personal heartbreak to learn a decades-old hidden truth.

It is said a bright and clear bomber’s moon is the best asset to finding one’s target. But beware what you wish for: what you can see at night can also see you, often with dire consequences. Two young women form the heart of this tale. One is an investigative reporter, the other a private investigator. Uneasy allies from completely different walks of life, they work together - around and sometimes against Joe Gunther and his VBI cops - in an attempt to connect the murders of a small-town drug dealer; a smart thief; and the tangled, political, dark goings on at a prep school.

A year ago, local philanthropist and millionaire Nathan Lyon died a natural death in his sprawling mansion, a 150,000-square-foot converted mill, surrounded by his loving, attentive family. Or so it seemed at the time. Now Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team has discovered that almost nothing about that story was true. Nathan Lyon was actually Nick Bianchi from Providence, Rhode Island. His money came from Mafia-tainted sources. And his family now seems to be dying themselves, and their deaths are now revealed to be murders.

Zack Brady doesn’t do relationships. He does calculations. Her name is Nicole Kennedy. She’s loud and crass, and has no time for nonsense. She certainly doesn’t have time for a mysterious trench swallowing her yard. To make matters worse, the grouchy engineer who shows up to fix it is the same jerk she’s forced to run beside during the corporate relay race her boss insisted she run.

The unthinkable has happened: An Akkadian assassin has helped broker peace between her star nation and the Alliance. Micah Case and Task Force Blue watch the peace talks with guarded optimism - but they know one thing the rest of the settled worlds don't: Clint Janus has vanished with the Alliance's most closely held secret. And Micah Case holds the key.

When they meet in the 1930s, Doris and Tup’s love is immediate. They marry quickly and Doris commits to the only life Tup ever wanted: working the Senter family farm. Soon their first child, Sonny, is born and Doris and Tup understand they are blessed. More children arrive - precocious, large-hearted Dodie and quiet, devoted Beston - but Doris and Tup take nothing for granted. When an unimaginable tragedy turns the family of five into a family of four, everything the Senters held faith in is shattered.

Cursed, numb, rejected, scorned, wicked, sinister, dark, and twisted...this is Tex Campisi's legacy. He killed his father in cold blood and lost his soul right along with him. He craves war more than peace, and he's about to take his place in history as the youngest capo dei capi in the Cosa Nostra - that is until someone stops him, saves him from himself. But the only person able to do that is Tex's best friend's sister, Mo Abandonato, and she just ripped his heart out and asked him to hold it in his hands while she put bullets through it.

An Alliance asset is found brutally murdered. Classified chiral material has vanished. Shadow Recon pilot Micah Case is the only human in existence who is immune to the weapon the Akkadians have developed using the stolen samples. Now, a member of the team has disappeared. Micah must find his missing teammate, track down the samples, and destroy the Akkadian laboratory before they unleash the deadly package. If they can't stop it in time, it's not the end of the world. It's the end of all life as we know it.

RatSnakes are rarely, if ever, visible to the public that they move among and risk their lives to protect. In fact, thanks to their cover personas, they are often assumed to be members of the clandestine criminal world that they investigate. Real-life undercover work is a far cry from the sexy, candy-colored world seen in Hollywood movies. Only those who are strong and clever enough will get inside and survive. Vincent A. Cefalu would know. He spent 30 years as an ATF undercover operative, in assignments ranging from the Symbionese Liberation Army to Asian organized crime.

The harrowing call comes from the NYPD: Willy's ex-wife Mary has been found dead in her Lower East Side apartment, and Willy is asked to identify the body. Torn from his beloved Vermont, Willy returns to the city of his hard-drinking youth with misgivings that deepen when he sees Mary's sad corpse on a gurney. Because of a fresh puncture mark in her arm, the police think she overdosed. But Willy has doubts. Driven by loss and guilt, Willy searches deeper and deeper into his past, to a long-ago Vietnam where he was a merciless loner known as the Sniper.

An overworked sheriff and a string of condo burglaries at a luxurious ski resort have Lieutenant Joe Gunther and the newly minted Vermont Bureau of Investigation digging deep for clues. But it doesn't take long for Joe to find the most likely thief missing and his girlfriend dead. As the complications mount, from drug dealing to environmental terrorism to attempted murder, Joe and his team go undercover to infiltrate the closed society of a one-company town, populated by bored millionaires and supported by a small legion of resort employees, not all of whom are what they seem.

Joe Gunther, a Brattleboro, Vermont cop, is the head of the new Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI). In The Marble Mask, the VBI's first case takes the force north to Stowe, where a 50-year-old corpse has turned up in a crevasse on Mt. Mansfield. When the frozen stiff turns out to have been a big-time Canadian crime boss named Jean Deschamps who disappeared after World War II, Joe and his gang cross the border to work with the Mounties, the Surete, and the local cops in Sherbrooke.

Newlyweds Alice and Jake are a picture-perfect couple. Alice, once a singer in a well-known rock band, is now a successful lawyer. Jake is a partner in an up-and-coming psychology practice. Their life together holds endless possibilities. After receiving an enticing wedding gift from one of Alice's prominent clients, they decide to join an exclusive and mysterious group known only as the Pact. The goal of the Pact seems simple: to keep marriages happy and intact.

When a local quarry yields a garroted body with bad dental work and toes tattooed in Cyrillic, Joe Gunther figures it's a Russian Mafia killing, rare as that might be in Vermont. But it's so very...tidy. So very...professional. Then the CIA calls, inviting Gunther down to Washington for some friendly "assistance" with his case. Suddenly he's caught up in a shadowy game of cross and double-cross.

Joe Gunther is sent to the neighboring town of Bellows Falls to investigate harassment allegations against a fellow officer. But as Gunther doggedly pursues the truth, what begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case starts to look more and more like a frame job, and he soon finds himself feeling around the edges of a statewide drug distribution network.

A 40-year-old skeleton is found encased in a concrete slab at a recently decommissioned nuclear energy site. It becomes a case for the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI) and its leader, Joe Gunther, since they have the resources and the ability to investigate an old, very cold, missing persons case that has now been reclassified as murder. The victim was Hank Mitchell, and Gunther must chase down old rumors and speculations.

Kellen Brady is just fine, thank you. He runs his family business. He cooks family dinners and takes his vitamins. He even gets plenty of exercise. When his daughter suggests he needs to get back out there, Kellen brushes off her comment and gets back to his work instead. Safer that way. Elizabeth Burns feels like she's waking up from a 20-year sleep. Decades of infertility, then raising an Autistic teen have taken their toll, and when Elizabeth realizes her distant husband is also a dirtbag, she shakes off the fog and heads for a new home and a new life.

Lieutenant Alex "Flex" Callahan watched helplessly as the first refugee ships fled Venus. Something was driving them mad, transforming both crew and vessels into horrors. But this was just the beginning. The mysterious alien menace that calls itself The Cure has arrived, threatening not only death and destruction but the monstrous and chilling corruption of humanity itself. While Flex works tirelessly to discover the true nature of The Cure, he is beset on all sides by doubters and enemies within.

Summer 2018. Two years into President Donald J. Trump's first term in office, America has never been greater. The Even Greater Wall along the Mexican border is under construction, paid for by Mexico. Americans have more money in their pockets thanks to lower taxes and the president's creative money-raising strategies. Who else would have thought to pay for FEMA's budget by suing the Catholic Church over property damage caused by acts of God?

Found as a babe amidst the dead and dying in the wake of a great battle, raised as the beloved son of blacksmith and warrior Hagar Hammersmith, Logan always knew that he was different. And with curses and stares and sometimes with fists, the villagers of Solan Bay did their best to makes sure he would never forget it. But on that day, the day the slavers came to Solan Bay and left him for dead in a pool of his own blood, everything changed. Logan learned the truth of his existence, of his destiny.