Reader Favorites – The Shelf Chosen by You

The first nonfiction book by award-winning novelist Martin Roy Hill, WAR STORIES describes acts of great heroism and acts of pure blundering, intrepid leadership and self-serving vainglory, brilliant wartime technological developments and not so brilliant ideas. Some will awe the reader with their inspirational stories. Others will astound the reader by the military stupidity they reveal.

Chimera Island. For more than a century, the tiny atoll has been the subject of legend and rumors. Mysterious sightings. Strange deaths. Unexplained disappearances. A transport plane sent to Chimera to evacuate frightened scientists from a climate research station on the island disappears, along with a Chinese spy ship prowling nearby waters. The U.S. Coast Guard sends its most secret team to investigate, Deployable Specialized Force-P—the P is said to stand for phenomenon.DSF-Papa, led by Lieutenant Commander Douglas Munro Gates, discovers there is more to the legend of Chimera Island than rumors and folklore. The climate research station is wrecked. Strange creatures skulk thro...

They call it simply "the object."It sits at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, waiting.Waiting . . . for what?An American research ship disappears in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea only to reappear a few days later. When a special U.S. Coast Guard unit boards the vessel, they find it deserted, its power grid wrecked, two bombs waiting to explode, and an even darker secret hidden below her decks.A few miles across the international maritime boundary, a massive Russian oil platform harbors its own secret. Below the behemoth lies a mysterious energy source so powerful it threatens to topple the balance of world power in favor of Moscow.The Russians will to kill to protect it. The Americans will kill to ...

“If this is Paradise, how bad could Hell be?”

A sandstorm uncovers a long buried secret in the Iraqi desert, an ancient Sumerian temple dating back at least 6,000 years to the beginning of civilization. An American army patrol sent to investigate the ruins is trapped inside the temple’s eroded walls, first by an insurgent ambush then by another, even more powerful sandstorm. When an enemy mortar shell blasts an opening into a hidden burial chamber, Captain Adam Cadman and his soldiers take refuge deep in the ruins. What they find hidden inside threatens to destroy every belief about the beginnings of mankind—as well as modern civilization as we know it.
 

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."  Samuel Johnson Iraq, 1991: Operation Desert Storm. In a terrible friendly fire incident, a U.S. helicopter massacres a small convoy of American MPs. Among the dead: a mysterious American civilian engineer discovered by the soldiers behind enemy lines.San Diego, CA, 1993: A freelance journalist is hired to write a story about a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the dead engineer's widow against the government and the defense contractor he worked for. The problem: the government insists the lawsuit does not exist, and the contractor claims the engineer did not work for them. Worse, someone is willing to kill to keep it that way.Peter Bra...

He warned her. People die in lonely and empty places. But she didn't listen.Peter Brandt is a war-scarred news service reporter who has seen more than he can bear to remember. Returning to the States, he discovers his former wife, TV reporter Robin Anderson, brutally murdered and the local cops doing nothing to find her killer. Driven by guilt and regret over his failed marriage, Peter sets out with an old friend, retired cop Matt Banyon, to find Robin's killer. Following clues she left behind, Peter and Matt unearth a shadowy world of sex, drugs, political corruption, and a wealthy Cuban freedom fighter with a suspicious past. Peter and Matt soon become the hunted, and Peter must finally fa...

2017 Best Mystery/Suspense Novel (Best Independent Book Awards)2018 Clue Award for Best Thriller (Chaticleer International Book Awards)Meet William Butcher, aka The Butcher, former Navy SEAL, now a disgraced ex-NCIS agent.Those who stole $9 billion in cash from Iraq want him dead.The cops want him for murder.Butcher's only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag.Together Schag and Butcher tear away the veil of conspiracy, uncovering a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.Ripped from today's headlines, this sequel to Martin Roy Hill's highly praised The Killing Depths takes the reader from the California mountains to the coastal waters o...

A submarine. A secret mission. And a serial killer.

A killer lurks beneath the waves of the western Pacific Ocean. 

The USS Encinitas, the first attack submarine crewed by both men and women, stalks the Crescent Moon, a renegade Iranian sub armed with nuclear-tipped missiles. But another predator hides aboard the American sub, a murderer who has already left a trail of dead women behind on shore.

While the crew of the Encinitas plays a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the Crescent Moon, NCIS investigator Linus Schag must discover the killer’s identity before his – or her – blood lust leads to the submarine’s total destruction.

Alex Colton is a young, idealistic recent college graduate, received an incredible career opportunity at boutique asset management firm Carrington Capital Partners. After the death of the chief executive officer, the leading CEO candidate creates a toxic security threatening to upend and possibly bankrupt the whole financial system. Through the help of the deceased CEO’s family and the company receptionist Lynda, Alex battles through corporate and political intrigue, along with learning secrets about himself and how he is personally and professionally linked to the ongoing saga regarding him, his family, and his place with his employer.

The attractions Roopa experienced and the fantasies she entertained as a teen shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification. However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hoping that Sathyam might serve her cause though the persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in him. But as he fails to go with her idea, she becomes apathetic towards him, and insensibly sinks into her friend ...

It's perilous penning this blurb.It's fine when man is modest about his work.It even affords him the aura of an invisible crown!But what about his work?Were it an art or craft, it is there for all to see.What of a literary work of an unheralded author?Well, lauding the same might raise one's eyebrows.Failing to praise wouldn't make a 'jewel-less crown' either!Why not see, if this is the great Indian novel.This is the story of the rise and fall of an ambitious man, the decline, and the decay of his conniving wife, the trials, and tribulations of their wayward son as well as the grit and gall of a spirited woman, who enters into his life.This depiction of their life and times not only pictures...

If passing through youth was like crossing the mirage of life for Chandra and Nithya, it proved to be chasing the mirage of love for Sathya and Prema though for plain Vasavi, Chandra's pitiable sibling, it was the end of the road.As life brings Chandra, who suffers from an inferiority complex for his perceived ugliness, and Nithya, who was bogged down being jilted by Vasu, together, they script their fate of fulfillment.And as poetic justice would have it, Sathya, who caused Prema's heartburn, himself was led down the garden path by Kala, doing a Sathya on Sathya.Just not that, life has in store just deserts for Vasu owing to Nithya's retribution as he tries to stalk her.Besides, after many ...

In a stream of consciousness mode, Glaring Shadow is the self-account of the life and times of a man, who liquidates his immense wealth only to consign it to the flames.The agony and ecstasy of his life as he makes it big in our materialistic world and the way he loses his soul in the bargain, only to regain it when tragedy strikes him makes one ponder over the meaning of success in life.This philosophical ‘novel of a memoir’ is a compelling read that is conducive to contemplate about the nature and scope of human relationships. Chapter Titles1. Glaring Shadow                     ...

Even as Detective Dhruva was enamored of Kavya, whom he rescues from her kidnapper, Radha, an alleged murderess on the run, gatecrashes into his life.But when Kavya too joins him after her man was poisoned there ensues the tussle of a love triangle, which gets unraveled in a poignant end, but not before a series of murders.So, then who could have poisoned Ranjit the realtor, Shakeel the Inspector, Pravar the criminal and Natya his accomplice?Well the needle of suspicion tilted towards Pravar that was till he perished with his mate, but then who was the one? Could it be Radha under the scanner for her role in the death of her husband Madhu and his mistress Mala, Pravar's sister?Or was it...

Lured by the pitch - All marriages are made in heaven but some are delayed on earth: We endeavor to hasten them all - Priya goes to Renuka Marriage Bureau.

Scanning the prospects, when she spotted Venu, whom she slighted long ago, she rushes to him to bring about a dramatic encounter.

What brought about Priya’s change of heart to seek her former suitor and how Venu responds to his old flame’s fresh overtures lend suspense to their romance in this eclectic novella. 

Contents

1 – Surprises of Life

2 – Flows of Fate

3 – Wedlock in Deadlock

4 – Furies of Falsity

5 – Ordeals of Ambition

6 – Falling in Line

7 – Breaking the Barrier

8 – Making the Thaw