Kirjahaku

What happens when a sociopath feels remorse? An Angel of Mercy serial killer targets the elderly, ending their lives when she sees fit--freeing her victims of their earth-bound misery by forming angel wings with their blood. But a visitor catches the killer in the act, forcing the Angel to murder a young, healthy and pregnant woman. That woman was the wife of Norm Braden, carrying their sixth child. Norm, grieving for his loss, struggles to hold the rest of his family together. Along with him is his wife's identical twin, struggling to fit into a world where her sister no longer exists. But it's hard, mostly because the killer visits Norm, breaks into his home, threatens his children. It seems the Angel just hasn't been feeling right since she murdered Norm's wife. Off her game. A nagging feeling plagues her. "It's guilt," Norm tells her. "You feel guilty for what you did." Their cat-and-mouse, co-dependent relationship begins. Norm thinks revenge is within his grasp, but his spiritual beliefs stop him with a crazy idea about the intrinsic value of every human life. The killer, a strange, exotic woman with a singular purpose and fixation on Norm, thinks she has found more than just the answer to her own problems. She's found her completion, her other half in Norm--if only she can replace the memory of his dead wife. If she can do that, she can continue murdering.

In the city of Carcasa, gunshots devastate the night as a patrol officer makes a traffic stop. The occupants-three dealers caught in the act of muling-set into motion a course of actions that can only end badly. Now, one is dead, another fleeing on foot and the third tearing through neighborhoods in a bumper car-style chase. Furious, grief-stricken officers on their heels with their brother fighting for his life on the side of a road. The shooter escapes, and the PD begins their hunt to find the shooter before he lucks out, fades into memory. With what information they have, they dig; the dirt that is the shooter's life getting thrown over their shoulders by the shovel-full. Family, friends, employment, any avenue of refuge for him begins to burn. Things get complicated along the way. The kind of complicated that goes into a body bag. The art of flushing out the enemy is a sacred practice, best done with smoldering rage. But, after a man has nowhere to hide, having him out in the open might be worse. Praise for IT'S UGLY BECAUSE IT'S PERSONAL: "It's Ugly Because It's Personal is a book unlike any other I've read and more than what it first appears to be. All told, it's Ryan Sayles putting it out there and showcasing a side of the life most of us rarely see. More than an important story, it's a grand design, and a book I believe the world needs to read." -Beau Johnson, author of All of Them to Burn "In his no-holds-barred style, Sayles is gritty and real...like a punch to the head. Life as it is in the hard, dark places where cops work. This is a timely tale that will make you think, and maybe even make you thankful." -Joel W. Barrows, author of the Deep Cover Thrillers "Tough as nails. Real as hell." -Colin Campbell, author of the Jim Grant Thrillers "This story erupts in gunfire on page one and spends the rest of the book dragging us through the tension and profound pain that results from those first pages. While adhering to the procedural, Sayles still manages to make this tale sing with tension." -Frank Zafiro, author of the SpoCompton novels

In the city of Rigid Creek, ugly things have come to blot out the light. Corporal Joshua Marks struggles with his place life. A veteran officer and respected leader, he's reached the end of his tenure. Widowed, months from retirement, called to the priesthood. His partner, Officer Bale Hammond, a once respected hotshot who has slowly left a trail of errors and questionable actions. Burned-out, unsatisfied, tortured. As autumn settles along the city, a man robs a liquor store for some quick cash but winds up leaving two dead bodies. The murderer escapes the police, only to be squeezed by both his dealer and his loan shark for more. Always more. Tensions escalate as both Corporal Marks and Officer Hammond reach impasses in every aspect of their lives as well as their partnership. All the liquor store robber sees is an ever-increasing amount to his debt. A fantastic storm on Halloween. Violation and carnage. Extreme failures. Corporal Marks looks at his world crashing around him, wanting to save his friend and partner from his self-induced downward spiral. Wanting to show him the light cannot be blotted out, even when they're in full dark. Officer Hammond wants to fix his broken life, but only has broken tools to use. Wants to stop feeling like a corpse with a pulse only because even death isn't through with him yet. They all want redemption, but violence keeps getting in the way.

Two nuns murdered. Two elderly, wonderful women brutally stabbed to death outside their ghetto mission as they went into the streets to gather the addicts and human waste for a night's rest. Motive? None. If scum are willing to come out of the shadows just to kill, they get paid in little more than blood. In this neighborhood, blood is gold. Private detective Richard Dean Buckner aids his best friend and former homicide partner Graham Clevenger in working the case. The local priest sees Buckner's handiwork--and rage--firsthand and hires him with the intention of hopefully saving the killer from the worst of the bare knuckle detective's rampage. Buckner develops a lead and hunts the suspect down, but as Clevenger develops a second, less likely and more earth-shattering suspect of his own, friend is pitted against friend as they race to prove who really did it. All the while Buckner is trying to ignore a similar case from his past where he allowed his pride to railroad the suspect into an early grave. Fearing Clevenger is about to do the same thing, Buckner realizes just how bleak his mistake was. To hunt a man who slaughtered two nuns, Buckner needs to use a junkyard dog as a landing cushion, make a victim remember the worst night of her life and undo years of therapy, smoke PCP and use a barnyard blow-up doll to strangle a man. So be it. Just another day. Praise for ALBATROSS: "The only thing more satisfying than watching a series character evolve is witnessing your favorite author make that same transformation. Blessedly, Albatross exhibits both those traits. Richard Dean Buckner, Ryan Sayles's violent, beleaguered, and damn-near-nihilistic private detective, struggles to accept the ideas of grace and the inherent value of humanity in the wake of callous atrocity. And Sayles dares the reader by writing a novel that's not just interested in the characters' lives--their brutal existences--but their immortal souls as well. Somebody is finally doing something interesting with crime fiction." --Grant Jerkins, author of Abnormal Man "I have come to realize Richard Dean Buckner as a force of nature. A tool Ryan Sayles uses as deftly as only someone as skilled as he can. All told, Albatross is not only a ride I recommend, but one I admire. A fine addition to RDB series." --Beau Johnson, author of A Better Kind of Hate

From a bank robbery gone horribly wrong to a shipwrecked man with a serious anger problem to a lonely teenage Peeping Tom, Ryan Sayles's second collection of stories steam rolls along. Need a transvestite beating up her drug dealer? Got it. What about a guy trying to stuff a dead hooker into his trunk? Got it also. Need a Richard Dean Buckner story? Got two of 'em. Come on in and join the mayhem.