Brad Parks

Shamus and Nero award-winning author Brad Parks takes readers back to the beginning of investigative reporter Carter Ross's career with this intriguing prequel short story. Only 24 years old and still a wide-eyed reporter for a tiny backwater newspaper, Ross is getting his crack at the big leagues with an interview at New Jersey's largest paper, The Eagle-Examiner. If-that is-he nails the interview and the on-the-spot writing test. Ross has never...

Die Katastrophe lauert an diesem Montagabend vor dem Haus der Tagesmutter, als Melanie mit den Worten überfallen wird: "Ihr Sohn ist nicht hier. Er befindet sich in der Obhut des Sozialamtes." Für die junge Mutter bricht ihre heile Welt zusammen: Sie wird beschuldigt, ihren Sohn vernachlässigt zu haben, mit Kokain zu dealen, den Stoff im Kinderzimmer gelagert zu haben und darüber hinaus auch noch ihr Kind im Internet zum Verkauf angeboten zu haben....

"When he hears residents of a Newark neighborhood are getting sick--and even dying--from a strange disease, investigative reporter Carter Ross dives into the story--so deep he comes down with the illness himself. With even more motivation to track down the source of the disease, Carter soon hits upon a nearby construction site. But when the project's developer is found dead, and his mob ties surface, Carter knows he's looking at a story much bigger--and...

"Judge Scott Sampson doesn't brag about having a perfect life, but the evidence is clear: A prestigious job. A beloved family. On an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, he is about to pick up his six-year-old twins to go swimming when his wife, Alison, texts him that she'll get the kids from school instead. It's not until she gets home later that Scott realizes she doesn't have the children. And she never sent the text. Then the phone rings, and every parent's...

"A rash of carjackings terrorizing Newark become newsworthy when one such theft ends in the murder of a wealthy banking executive. The affable, wisecracking Ross is assigned the story, but he's weary of only writing about victims of crime who happen to be rich and white. To balance his reporting, he finds a Nigerian immigrant of more modest means who was also killed during a recent carjacking. When it turns out the two victims knew each other, sharing...

Nate Lovejoy is a self-proclaimed nobody, a stay-at-home dad who doesn't believe he's important to anyone but his wife and their two daughters. So it's a shock when members of a powerful secret society kidnap and spirit Nate away to a mansion at the behest of their leader, Vanslow DeGange, who claims to know the future. He's foreseen that a billion people could die--unless Nate acts. It seems improbable, especially given what DeGange says will set...