The Cape

A strange and attractive neighbour moves in near Jake. From the outset she seems intent on building a friendship. Despite his need for privacy, Jake finds he is drawn to her, but soon peculiar things start to happen. He experiences strange visions and frightening episodes that seem to be linked to his neighbour.

When he stumbles across his only daughter's corpse in a deserted beachfront bungalow, devastated Ezekiel Cooper vows to find her murderer. What the former NYPD detective doesn't know is that there have been other victims. Women in Queens, Sarasota, Seattle. Women who seemingly had nothing in common, aside from a grisly fate at the hands of a chillingly clever stranger.

It's so exciting to start over. Deidre Jones should know, since she's doing just that. The first step was getting out of the mental hospital in St. Louis. There were those who tried to stop her. . .so she had to make them understand: Deirdre gets what she wants. And she wants her ex-husband, David, back. He's got a new wife and a little boy. He's forgotten what he and Deirdre once shared. But it will be easy enough to remind him now that she's moved in upstairs. . .

For David, his time with Deirdre was a dark chapter he was glad to see end. Their marriage was based on dangerous, obsessive passion--and when David left, he never looked back. He'd hoped it was the same for Deirdre, but her "neighborly" behavior soon proves him wrong. She's doing her best to manipulate herself back into his life: through his child, through seduction. . .through murder. Because Deirdre will do anything to get what can never be hers--and now David is the only one who can stop her. . .

Someone is killing wealthy Manhattanites. One by one, the victims are discovered in luxurious high-rise apartments. Bound, gagged--brutally murdered in the "safety" of their own homes, by someone whose modus operandi is as horrifying as anything NYPD Detectives Ben Stack and Rica Lopez have ever seen.

As Stack and Lopez investigate the cruel deaths, they have no idea that they are being watched from the shadows--observed by a cunning murderer picking up all the clues necessary to stay one step ahead of the police while perfecting a deadly craft. And when a pattern slowly emerges, the detectives realize that the killings aren't the random acts of a maniac, but the personal campaign of someone bent on retribution. . .someone who's been watching closely and knows their case too well.

Someone whose vengeance will burn forever.

A Man picks up the phone and dials 911. The Operator picks up, and the game begins.

Liadin Patrick has a successful career as a psychologist and victim's advocate for the city of Denver, Colorado. Her marriage, the exact opposite. She struggles with thoughts of having children and her husband questions her loyalty as he and his art gallery are threatened by embezzlement charges. Liadin's unresolved feelings surrounding her father's murder won't subside and she decides to enlist the help of the next ADA and her best friend, Grant Cannon, to seek the truth behind the lies.

Her sister, Belinda Chase, bribed to keep a deadly secret since she was fourteen, now battles mental illness with life threatening addictions. Ready to take a stand she is suddenly faced with a divorce and a paternity test from her husband and must move into the family guest house secluded in the Black Forest. On the verge of a nervous breakdown the family is certain Belinda poses no threat, but they are wrong.

Belinda faces further insanity as the family threatens her existence and the lives of her children. Liadin now becomes the biggest target in her father's murder investigation while she watches her husband self-destruct. Not realizing their lives are the biggest cover ups of all, both sisters must form an unlikely alliance to save their family and each other, but will it be too late?

A computer programmer, a casting director, a call girl. The victims have nothing in common except the manner in which they spent their last night--wrapped in their own bed sheets in a bloody ritual of slow, agonizing death.

For NYPD Captain Thomas Horn, this adversary is unlike any he has met before. Methodical and highly skilled, the killer is always one step ahead, able to enter buildings without detection and leave no trace behind. To stop this deadly rampage, Horn must unlock the secrets of a cunning enemy who is saving his most shocking surprises for last. . .

"John Lutz knows how to make you shiver." --Harlan Coben

"Lutz ranks with such masters as Lawrence Block and Ed McBain." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When our world suddenly crumbles apart we are faced with multiple options. We can choose to accept responsibility for our own failures, change what needs to be changed, pick up the pieces and start all over again. Or, we can choose to hold everyone else responsible for our failures and seek revenge. The Leveler is a failed man who chooses not to accept personal responsibility for the miserable way his life has turned out. Pursued by rookie homicide detective Beebe Lawless, The Leveler goes on a week long killing spree seeking revenge against those he feels conspired to ruin his life.

For the President of the United States, the daily horror of life in West Darfur, Sudan's anarchic killing fields, just hit heartbreakingly close to home. His beloved niece Lily, a nurse caring for refugees in the most war-torn region, has been targeted and savagely murdered by a corps of Janjaweed, fearsome government-backed militiamen.

The rash and vicious killing is a clear provocation, but any response will seriously destabilize the already-teetering region and threaten the security of the entire world. With the situation too explosive for diplomatic or military solutions, yet with the President and the public thirsting for revenge, America is out of options. Except one: Ryan Kealey.

Kealey, ex-Special Forces, former CIA, unrivaled counterterrorism expert, has been central to the war on terror for over a decade. But he's finished trying to save the world. After the Agency hung him out to dry--and let his lover die--it was easy for him to turn his back. They had nothing he wanted. Until now. For the government has revealed its trump card, the one thing Kealey will risk everything for.

Once back in the fold, Kealey's pursuit of Lily's killers unearths secrets and betrayals that shock even his war-tempered sensibilities and leave him with no-one to trust. On the lawless streets of Sudan, and at the highest levels of the American government, shadowy forces ignite a conflagration with unknowable global consequences.

When three boys from different backgrounds find a tree with a sordid history they learn that some trees have deep roots and mistakes of the past sometimes collide with mistakes of the present.

The Hanging Tree is a 5000 word supernatural horror story by Erik Lynd, author of the novels ASYLUM and THE COLLECTION. Sample chapters of these two novels are included in this ebook.