Hard Return, a Cyril Landry thriller from NYT best-selling author J. Carson Black
Cyril Landry has been a dead man since he escaped a firefight off the coast of Florida three years ago. In all that time, the former Navy SEAL has been living off the grid to protect his wife and teenage daughter, who have mourned him and moved on.
Five days a week, Landry watches from a distance as his daughter Kristal leaves school—his only chance to see her. One day a shooter in black unloads his M-16 on the students, killing eight kids—including Kristal’s boyfriend, Luke. Landry takes out the gunman with a single sniper shot before melting back into the city. But this wasn’t a typical massacre, and the clues add up to only one conclusion: someone knows Landry’s alive, and wants him dead—again. Teaming up with Detective Jolie Burke—a homicide cop who plays by her own rules—Landry must find a way to protect his family, and avenge Luke’s death.
In the second Cyril Landry thriller, black ops turn the world red.
Hailed by bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker as “a strong new voice in American crime fiction,” J. Carson Black has written fifteen novels. Her thriller, THE SHOP, reached #1 on the Kindle Bestseller list, and her crime thriller series featuring homicide detective Laura Cardinal became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Although Black earned a master’s degree in operatic voice, she was inspired to write a horror novel after reading The Shining. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Visit J. Carson at http://www.jcarsonblack.com/
Book Excerpt
In Memoriam
Four dead.
Every day, no matter how busy he was—and he was up to his ears in busy right now—he made himself look at the Crime Scene photos.
After that first year, it had gotten so that he could look at them without emotion. A cop friend of his had cadged the photos for him. They had been friends since Baghdad. Different branches of the military, different areas of expertise, yet somehow they had forged a friendship in that godforsaken hellhole.
What were the odds?
Josh—the youngest–was a towhead. His hair always stuck up like a dandelion. (Even in death his hair looked like a dandelion–the part that wasn’t drenched in blood.)
He was a good kid. He’d been under-qualified for the job, that was true, but it wasn’t his fault. Someone should have made that call for him.
He went back through the photos, all six of them. The floor, the open door to the bedroom, the legs and feet and shoes on the other body, intruding into the frame.
The blood.
A nicked carotid artery. A broken neck.
Not one or the other, but both.
There were three dead men in the house.
The fourth had died separately, days later.
If he’d died at all.
NYT & USA Today Bestselling Author--- Carol Davis Luce 