Gregory Ashe

They killed a girl to keep their secrets. They won't stop there.A new home, a fresh start, a chance to do things right this time-and Shaw and North are determined to make it work. But the night of their housewarming party, things don't go as planned. A reporter arrives, wanting to talk to North about his ex-husband, his father, and a criminal syndicate. No sooner have they gotten rid of her than another unwanted guest appears: a street boy named Nik, whom Shaw met months before, begging them to help him find his missing friend, Malorie.Retracing Malorie's steps, North and Shaw learn about the dangerous demimonde of runaway teenagers. Their investigation takes them into the path of men and women who have learned to profit off the suffering and abandonment of children: shelters, clinics, labor brokers, and pimps.Meanwhile, North's Uncle Ronnie is set on revenge, and his target this time is North's father. As North struggles to track down Ronnie and put an end to the danger, he finds himself considering a deal with the devil, and the offer might be too good to pass up.When North and Shaw find Malorie's body, evidence suggests she was murdered-and that her death is connected in some way with a truck stop halfway across the state. But as they draw closer to the truth, the danger grows. The people who killed Malorie have the Borealis detectives in their sights, and North and Shaw must race to save their own lives before the killers can strike again.

Finding a missing boy will be hard. Dinner with Shaw's parents might be murder.When a rising star in the state senate asks Shaw Aldrich and North McKinney to transport her son, Flip, to and from his drug testing appointments, they're not happy-they don't do babysitting jobs. Arriving at the boy's dorm room, though, they discover that the door has been forced and that Flip has disappeared, and rumors of strange men on campus suggest that something seriously bad has happened. The students and staff at the ritzy private school have plenty to tell about Flip, but the deeper North and Shaw dig, the less they understand what might have happened to the boy.Then one of Flip's friends is found dead, and it's clear that she was killed for coming too close to the truth. As North and Shaw search for answers, they meet resistance from every angle: from the school's staff, from Flip's friends, from the police, even from Flip's family. Someone wants the boy to disappear-and is willing to kill to make sure it happens.The home front has its share of trouble too. North's 'uncle' Ronnie is back at his old games, drawing North and Shaw into a job that seems simple on the surface-find a missing man who might be in trouble-but they suspect that the request hides something sinister. Ronnie's involvement, and the job itself, puts the detectives on a collision course with Shaw's parents and a strain on their fledgling relationship.As the days pass, North and Shaw realize time is running out for Flip and, maybe, for them as well. They have been misled from the very beginning-and they might be too late.

Rabid readers. Backbiting authors. A romance convention from hell.Shaw Aldrich and his best friend, boyfriend, and partner, North McKinney, are doing great, thanks. The aftermath of their search for the Slasher has finally settled down. Their private investigation agency is thriving. And after years of missed opportunities, they're finally together. Sure, work might be taking up every spare minute, and their time together as a couple might have evaporated-but that's normal, right?When an author asks for their help investigating threats against a gay romance convention, Shaw sees an opportunity to shake up their routine and maybe have some fun. But the convention isn't what he expects. Between the rabid fans and the backbiting authors, the death threats-which seem totally baseless-are the least of North and Shaw's worries.Until, that is, a bestselling author is poisoned in the middle of a panel. Then Shaw and North must race against the clock to find the killer before he (or she) escapes-and before the convention ends. But romance authors are more complicated than either North or Shaw expects, and a treacherous web knits the suspects together.Shaw and North will have to unravel a skein of lies and half-truths to uncover the killer. It doesn't help that, on top of everything else, Shaw just wants to find his next favorite book-and, if it isn't asking too much, have sex with North at least one more time in his current incarnation.Indirection is the first book in a follow-up series; read North and Shaw's first adventures in The Borealis Investigations, beginning with Orientation.

Elien Martel is a survivor, but surviving, he's beginning to discover, isn't the same thing as living. In the house he shares with his much older boyfriend, Elien spends his days trying to stay as far away from living as possible. Living, he has learned, means that sooner or later you'll get hurt.When a member of Elien's support group dies under strange circumstances, though, Elien finds himself in a web of bizarre coincidences. The responding officer turns out to be another member of Elien's support group-a man named Mason, who has made no effort to hide his dislike of Elien. Then, just a few days later, Mason tries to kill Elien in front of dozens of witnesses.As violence ripples through Elien's world, he begins to suspect that the coincidences are not coincidences at all. Something is at work behind the cascade of tragedies, something vicious and intelligent. Something that has wanted Elien for a long time.To defeat it, Elien will have to do what he fears most and face the darkness in his own past. Worse, he'll have to take the risk of trying to live again.

Rufus O'Callaghan has eked out a living on the streets of New York City by helping the police put away criminals as a confidential informant. But when Rufus shows up for an arranged meeting and finds his handler dead, his already-uncertain life is thrown into a tailspin. Now someone is trying to kill Rufus too, and he's determined to find out why.After leaving the Army under less than desirable circumstances, Sam Auden has drifted from town to town, hitching rides and catching Greyhounds, until he learns that a former Army buddy, now a police detective in New York City, has died by suicide. Sam knows that's not right, and he immediately sets out to get answers.As Rufus and Sam work together to learn the truth of their friend's death, they find themselves entangled in a web of lies, cover-ups, and accelerating danger. And when they witness a suspect killed in cold blood, they realize they're running out of time.

A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 2 - Nick Hoffman, desperate to get tenure, has been saddled with a thankless task: coordinating a conference on Edith Wharton that will demonstrate how his department and his university supports women's issues. There's been widespread criticism that SUM is really the State University of Men. Problem is, he's forced to invite two warring Wharton societies, and the conflict between rival scholars escalates from mudslinging to murder. Nick's job and whole career are on the line unless he can help solve the case and salvage the conference.Originally published in 1998, this new edition contains a 2020 foreword by Gregory Ashe as well as a new introduction by the author.

Shaw and North are together. Finally. After eight years of knowing each other and loving each other and slipping past each other, they've finally told each other how they feel. Borealis Investigations is growing, and they have a major prospective client on the line. Everything is finally moving the way it should.Until the night Shaw receives a phone call telling him that Detective Jadon Reck, his former boyfriend, has been attacked.In spite of a warning from Jadon's partner, Shaw and North begin an investigation into the attack. But nothing is at it seems. City police are working to cover up evidence faster than Shaw and North can find it, and the motive for the attack seems impossible to unravel.When a conspiracy of dirty cops takes action against Shaw and North, the two detectives realize they are running out of time. They have to get answers about the attack on Jadon before they lose their own lives. But Shaw knows there are things worse than death. And one of them has come back for him, to finish what he started seven years before. The West End Slasher has returned.

Vie Eliot arrives in the small town of Vehpese, Wyoming with little more than the clothes--and scars--on his back. Determined to make a new life for himself after escaping his abusive mother, he finds that living with his estranged father brings its own problems.Then Samantha Oates, the girl with blue hair, goes missing, and Vie might be the only one who can find her. His ability to read emotions and gain insight into other people's darkest secrets makes him the perfect investigator, with only one small problem: he wants nothing to do with his gift.When the killer begins contacting Vie through a series of strange cards, though, Vie is forced to hone his ability, because Samantha was not the killer's only target.And, as Vie learns, he is not the only psychic in town.

Vie Eliot has survived a new high school, an abusive father, and the murderous Mr. Big Empty. Now, as Vie searches for Mr. Big Empty, he also finds himself facing an unexpected complication: how to be a good boyfriend.When a mysterious drifter named River disappears, though, Vie finds himself dragged into finding the missing boy. Vie's psychic abilities have proved useful in the past, and once again they set him on the trail of a gruesome murderer.But the pattern of killings seems to make no sense, and as Vie tries to stop the murderer, he learns that the people he loves most are in terrible danger.And the killings may be much more personal than Vie has suspected.

Only days have passed since Vie Eliot's murderous half-brother-a dangerous, out-of-control psychic-was stopped from killing the people Vie loves most, but Vie is ready for his life to return to normal. He has plans. Big plans. Make the cross country team, pick up his grades, and spend a lot of time with his boyfriend.On the day of cross country tryouts, though, Vie finds one of the teachers dead-and Vie refuses to believe that the death was a suicide. As he searches for the killer, or killers, he discovers that a conspiracy exists in the small town of Vehpese: a conspiracy that might be older and deeper than Vie first suspects, a conspiracy of drugs and human trafficking that might also be tied, in some way Vie can't quite understand, to his own abilities-and to the other psychic abilities in his town. When the murderers turn their attention to Vie, though, he discovers that his powers might not be up to the task. He faces ghosts, ancient monsters, and even an evil substitute teacher, but unless he can confront his past, and the trauma that lies there, he might not manage to save the people he cares about.He might not even survive himself.

The poems in Explorations are reflections and observations on nature and life. Bookended by Rotunda Dreams and Appalachian Dawn, the poem Western Explorations is a Whitman-esque series of poemettes in which the author's journey through several National Parks in the American West which parallels a spiritual journey of the soul. Rotunda Dreams recounts a beautifully warm spring evening sitting on the steps of Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Meanwhile, Appalachian Dawn chronicles a magical morning drive through the mountains of western Virginia and West Virginia.