New Releases by Neil McMahon

Ancient evil awakens in a rural French village, in the form of a Templar knight who was burned at the stake in the 14th century for practicing black magic.Now it''s the 1980''s, and his undead spirit, bent on possession of a human body, invades the lives of a wealthy American couple renting a nearby villa. A genuinely frightening story--not recommended for children.

Beautiful Selena is cursed with a sinister secret: She was born a demon child, and is forced to prostitute herself in order to feed her unseen, hellish "companions" with the souls of her lovers, who soon die in agony and terror. She battles this by choosing only evil men as victims--but now the companions are demanding a goodhearted young doctor, and her strength to resist is fading.

A sequel to NEXT, AFTER LUCIFER, with the evil Templar, Guilhem de Courdeval, surfacing in San Francisco. He poses as a spiritual teacher and gathers disciples, using a seductive philosophy that fulfills their desires--until they realize that his true goal is to turn them into servants of evil, and it''s too late to back out.

“As much a mind game as it is thriller, a scientific puzzle buried in a murder mystery, all set against the surreal world of Hollywood filmmaking. . . . I can’t wait for the next book!”—James Rollins Acclaimed mystery writer Neil McMahon, coauthor of the James Patterson thriller Toys, delivers a fast-paced psychological thriller from the heart of a city gone insane: America’s myth-making capital, Los Angeles, has become a bedlam of murder, drugs, conspiracy, and obsession, and only one man has the power to put things right. Fans of science-tinged suspense from authors like Patrick Lee, William Gibson, and Greg Bear, will thrill for L.A. Mental’s taught, high-stakes story of one man’s accidental immersion in an underworld he never knew existed—one which will require every last reserve of his intelligence, ruthlessness, and cunning to escape.

Move over, James Bond and Jason Bourne-superhuman agent Hays Baker fights to save millions of lives in James Patterson''s thrilling bestseller. Hays Baker and his wife Lizbeth possess superhuman strength, extraordinary intelligence, stunning looks, a sex life to die for, and two beautiful children. Of course they do-they''re Elites, endowed at birth with the very best that the world can offer. But their lives are about to change forever. The top operative for the Agency of Change, Hays has just won the fiercest battle of his career. He has been praised by the President, and is a national hero. But before he can savor his triumph, he receives an unbelievable shock that overturns everything he thought was true. Suddenly Hays is on the other side of the gun, forced to leave his perfect family and fight for his life. Now a hunted fugitive, Hays is thrown into a life he never dreamed possible: fighting to save humans everywhere from extinction. He enlists all of his training to uncover the truth that will save millions of lives, maybe even his own. Compelling and addictive, Toys is an unforgettable spy thriller from the world''s #1 writer.

Hays Baker and his wife, Lizbeth, possess superhuman strength, extraordinary intelligence, stunning looks, a sex life to die for, and two beautiful children. Of course they do-they''re Elites, endowed at birth with the very best that the world has to offer. The only problem in their perfect life: humans and their toys! The top operative for the Agency of Change, Hays has just won the fiercest battle of his career. He has been praised by the president and is a national hero. But before he can savor his triumph, he receives an unbelievable shock that overturns everything he thought was true. Suddenly, Hays is on the other side of the gun, forced to leave his perfect family and fight for his life. Now a hunted fugitive, Hays is thrown into an existence he never dreamed possible-fighting to save humans everywhere from extinction. He enlists all of his training to uncover the truth that will save millions of lives-maybe even his own. James Patterson''s Toys is a thriller on a hyperplane-with a hero who rivals both James Bond and Jason Bourne.

From the very start, Dr. Carroll Monks knew that the businessman dumped from a limousine in the parking lot of Mercy Hospital wasn''t a typical San Francisco junkie. Even after Monks had rushed the dying man inside and brought him back from the precipice of a heroin overdose—after the danger had, seemingly, passed-Monks sensed that something more sinister was brewing. Just how sinister, he couldn''t have guessed. First a phalanx of lawyers and doctors descended on the hospital and whisked the man away before Monks could find out more about the suspicious circumstances surrounding his arrival. Then a small fire broke out in the hospital—an act of sabotage that resulted in the disappearance of the man''s blood samples. But the real shock came the next morning, when the newspapers reported the mysterious disappearance of billionaire Lex Rittenour. Rittenour, a beloved computer wunderkind, had long been rumored to be developing a top-secret technology involving the human genome, the medical applications of which had the potential to place his name alongside those of Lister, Curie, and Salk. Now, just days before the unveiling of his breakthrough, Rittenour—whom Monks now recognizes as the man he saved in the ER the night before-had, according to his corporate spokesmen, "gone into seclusion." What begins for Monks as an inquiry into Rittenour''s disappearance unearths something far more diabolical—the horrific facts behind genetic research done in Rittenour''s name-and pits him against a corporation of dubious ethics, ruthless commando-style tactics, and a multi-billion-dollar motivation to protect its dark secrets. As he did in his first Carroll Monks novel (Twice Dying), Neil McMahon creates from today''s most complex ethical issues—in this case, the "progress" stemming from explosive new advances in genetics—the unforgettably chilling, electrifying drama of Blood Double.

Outside San Francisco, a sting of NGI''s--violent sociopaths found not guilty by reason of insanity--have been sent back into society, and, one by one, mysteriously disappeared.... Beautiful psychologist Alison Chapley wants to know why and sets off on a search for answers that lures her and her former lover, medical examiner Carroll Monks, into a menacing and increasingly macabre dance with a brilliant psychopath known only as Naia.... Naia''s perverse and carefully chosen clues--plaster masks, a snuff videotape, a deadly cobra--draw Alison into a psychological seduction she''s powerless to resist. Running out of time, Monks''s only chance to save Alison is to outwit this twisted mastermind in a deranged and deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

After a failed career and marriage in California, Hugh Davoren is back in Helena, Montana, as a construction hand at the old Pettyjohn Ranch, home of many childhood memories—including the seemingly accidental death of his teenaged first love, Celia. Hugh is just trying to get through another long workday on the ranch when he discovers two dead stallions. A further probe into the matter only pushes Hugh into dangerous corners, as he finds that the ranch''s slick new owner, his beautiful wife, and even old Mr. Pettyjohn have terrible secrets to keep.

Take this, brother, may it sere you well.... As he lies, bound and hidden, on the floor of his abductors'' SUV, Carroll Monks is only dimly aware of the bizarre series of high-profile murders sweeping across the nation. What he thinks about instead, a they travel for hours deep into the Northern California wilderness, is that the face of one of his abductors belongs to his own son, Glenn--long estranged and living (the last Monks knew) on the streets of Seattle. The vehicle finally stops. when Monks is untied and stpes out, he sees he''s been brought to a remote off-the-grid community where paramilitary training and methamphetamine makes for combustible, uneasy bedfellows--and that Glen has fallen under the spell of a disenfranchised counter-cultural sociopath known simply as Freeboot, who claims that a revolution "of the people" is already under way. Monks is appalled by Freeboot''s violent histrionics and Manson-like affinity for the hidden messages buried within Lennon and McCartney lyrics, yet acknowledges that he hears echoes of his won feelings when Freeboot speaks about the disintegration of workers'' rights, the escalating differential between the haves and the have-nots, and the slap-on-the-wrist "justice" doled out in cases of billion-dollar corporate malfeasance. Could this well-armed madman actually have his finger on teh pulse of the underclass? The reason Monks has been abducted, he soon discovers, is Freeboot''s own son, a four-year-old boy who is deathly ill--a conundrum for Freeboot, who''s distrust of institutional America (hospitals included) borders on the psychotic. Monks, and ER physician, has been brought in to care for the boy, but he can see immediately that the boy''s condition is acute and that only immediate hospitalization will save him. When Monk''s pleas fall on deaf ears, he fashions a daring escape during a snowstorm, with the young boy slung across his back--and brings the wrath of a madman down on himself and his family, culminating in a diabolically crafted "revolution"--a re-creation of Hitchcock''s The Birds, but with human predators, unleashed on the town of Bodega Bay, California.

Late one hot summer night, a beautiful young actress named Eden Hale -- only hours removed from breast-augmentation surgery, and writhing in pain -- stumbles to the telephone and dials 911. Within minutes, an ambulance rushes her to San Francisco''s Mercy Hospital. But by the time she arrives, she is dying, fast, of a mysterious, unrecognizable condition. Dr. Carroll Monks, the ER physician on duty, races to sort through her baffling symptoms in the few minutes he has left to save her. Monks has a sudden insight and, against the advice of his peers, risks a radical treatment, which will prove to be either a brilliant maneuver or a potentially deadly mistake. It fails. Eden Hale, vibrantly healthy and barely twenty-five years old, is dead. The fallout is immediate and intense. The plastic surgeon who operated on Eden -- Dr. D. Welles D''Anton, whose reputation as a surgical guarantor of perfection and agelessness has conferred on him a guru-like status -- blames Monks for her death. Criticism from Monks''s hospital colleagues quickly follows and the threat of a lawsuit is not far behind. Monks''s career is in jeopardy, but his own guilt and uncertainty are what haunt him worst of all. Convinced there''s a hidden cause to Eden''s death, Monks starts to delve into her past. Despite roadblocks that spring up in his path, he soon learns that the former prom queen was not the all-American girl she seemed to be: she was caught up in the world of pornography, and was even, possibly, having an illicit affair with D''Anton. Then Monks uncovers a secret that is far more frightening: other young women in D''Anton''s care have wound up missing, dead, or horribly disfigured. In his search for the truth, Monks is drawn into a culture of unimaginable wealth and vanity -- only to discover that he is being used as a pawn in a decadent game of glamour and cruelty, one that places him in the crosshairs of a deadly psychopath. With To the Bone, Neil McMahon -- described by the Chicago Tribune as "a cross between Raymond Chandler and Thomas Harris" -- provides a heart-pounding journey into a world of murder and vanity gone wild that you won''t soon forget, and demonstrates why he''s been called "an author to remember" and "a writer you''re going to be hearing a lot about."

Their first appearance in Lone Creek helped garner McMahon the most extraordinary reviews of his career. None other than mystery guru Otto Penzler said: "It is the poignant and knowing prose that elevates this novel to literature. What separates this book from other outstanding crime novels is the moral might of the hero—and he is a hero, just as Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Spenser, Harry Bosch, and C. W. Sugrue are. Davoren believes in friendship, his word, honor, and the earth—the bleak but beautiful mountainous west." Dead Silver begins with a distraught call to Hugh Davoren from the daughter of a famous professor when she finds a wooden box containing disturbing photos and an earring that belonged to her stepmother, murdered after protesting the opening of a silver mine. With his trademark descriptions of the well-to-do and the down-and-out, McMahon brings in a cast of colorful characters who support and oppose Hugh and his friend Madbird—plenty of people who may have had a hand in the murder cases that these photos have reopened. And Hugh''s judgment could be clouded by his feelings for the professor''s vulnerable but feisty daughter, who is trying to draw the killer out on her own.

When Heath Ledger finished reading the script for Brokeback Mountain - a film about a love affair between two American cowboys - he thought of his friend Adam Sutton, and told him, ''I''ve just read this script and it sounds a lot like you.'' He was right: Adam''s own life was reflected in many of the film''s themes. Brokeback Mountain went on to establish itself as a cultural landmark and its impact was felt far beyond the cinema: it was a human story, not a gay story, and audiences of every type responded around the world. Similarly, when Adam Sutton''s story appeared on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, the response was immediate and extraordinary. ''Meet Heath''s mate, the real gay cowboy,'' the headline ran, and thousands did - setting a five-year sales record for the paper, and prompting the TV programme Australian Story to devote an episode to Adam''s story. By nature Adam was a masculine daredevil who survived on the strength of his boisterous character. He was ''the crazy bastard'' - the maddest, bravest bloke in the room - who had faced tragedy, a prison stint, and five long years on the road that took him from one side of Australia to the other, but who could not face himself. His extraordinary and unlikely journey from the world of cowboys, rodeos and stereotypes, to Hollywood and, finally, to self-acceptance, is a powerful reminder that sometimes truth is even stranger than Hollywood fiction.