Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

Beatrix Rose has been betrayed. Her husband has been murdered and her daughter, Isabella, abducted. She flees to the Hong Kong underworld to plot her revenge. Those who wronged her will pay. Beatrix is the most dangerous woman you’ve ever met. She was an assassin for The Firm, the beyond top secret agency that did the dirty work for the British Secret Services. She is lethal. Ethically flexible. Totally ruthless. And you know what they say about payback.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

1969. Eloise Shepherd, one of MI6's brightest rising stars, is working undercover in Soviet Russia as Magdalina Novikova. Her mission is to persuade nuclear physicist Stanislav Kalashnik to defect and bring his knowledge of Russian weapons back to the UK. On the verge of success, the operation fails suddenly and spectacularly. Seventeen years later, Kalashnik is Chief Engineer at the power plant near Pripyat known as Chernobyl. His concerns for the safety of the plant are growing.

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world...and then tragedy struck.

A master assassin craves one thing above all else: a normal everyday life. Trained to be a killer from the age of 11, Peter has never known the things the average person takes for granted. He has always been an asset. Burned by the CIA and now occupying their secret hit list, he works overseas as a Ronin, living a solitary life in hiding. But someone knows where he is. A strange man arrives at his door offering Peter the chance of a real life. "Get this done and you can be free," he is told.

John Dempsey's life - as an elite Tier One Navy SEAL named Jack Kemper - is over. A devastating terrorist action catapults him from a world of moral certainty and decisive orders into the shadowy realm of espionage, where ambiguity is the only rule. His new mission: hunt down those responsible for the greatest tragedy in the history of the US Special Ops and bring them to justice.

Joey Morales was the last recruit of the government's full black operation, the Orphan Program. Trained to be an assassin until she washed out, she was rescued by Evan Smoak, the former agent known as Orphan X. Now Joey, a world-class hacker, starts training for one of her biggest challenges yet: having a normal life. Still a teenager, she discovers she loves music as much as hacking, if not more so. But as she carves out a space for herself, the one thing missing is a family to support her endeavors.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: An assassin. Evan was Orphan X - until he broke with the program and used everything he learned to disappear. But now someone is on his tail.

On the snow-covered slopes of Utah, the unthinkable has just become a nightmarish reality: thirty Secret Service agents have been viciously executed and the vacationing president of the United States kidnapped by one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in the Middle East - the Fatah Revolutionary Council. But surviving agent and ex-Navy SEAL Scot Harvath doesn't believe the Fatah Revolutionary Council is responsible for the attack.

When those inside the corridors of power need help outside the law, they know who to call. Jonathan Grave, covert rescue specialist, always gets results. No names. No feds. No trace evidence.

Half American, half Japanese, expert in both worlds but at home in neither, John Rain is the best killer money can buy. You tell him who. You tell him where. He doesn’t care about why... Until he gets involved with Midori Kawamura, a beautiful jazz pianist - and the daughter of his latest kill.

Wall Street Journal best-selling author L.T. Ryan's Jack Noble series travels back to the beginning in this suspenseful thriller as Noble and Bear are tossed into the CIA-sponsored program that allows them to live as ghosts with no rules other than to get the job done by any means. After completing training, they are sent overseas to recover an operative being held and tortured by terrorists in Aleppo, Syria. Saving the woman is not without risks, as the young team learns firsthand.

Jon Reznick is a “ghost”: a black-ops specialist who takes his orders from shadowy handlers, and his salary from the US government. Still mourning the loss of his beloved wife on 9/11, he’s dispatched to carry out a high-level hit. Reznick knows only that it must look like suicide. It’s textbook. But the target is not the man Reznick expected. The whole setup is wrong.

In these tales, Lord John vows to avenge a murder, investigates a terrifying "night-hag" on the battlefields of Europe, and discovers treason in His Majesty's ranks.

Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

Grace Chu is an American-educated Chinese national now working as a forensic accountant after serving in the Chinese army as an intelligence officer. John Knox is an American who parlayed his military service during the first Iraqi war into a lucrative import/export business, which now provides him the official access he needs to work freelance undercover operations throughout the world. Both are highly skilled operatives capable of deft subterfuge or extreme violence, if circumstances require.

Pools of blood, scenes of carnage, signs of agonising death - who deals with the aftermath of violence once the bodies have been taken away? Judith Kepler has seen it all. She is a crime-scene specialist. She turns crime scenes back into habitable spaces. She is a cleaner. It is at the home of a woman who has been brutally murdered that she is suddenly confronted with her own past. The murder victim knew Judith's secret: as a child Judith was sent to an orphanage under mysterious circumstances - parentage unknown.

Corporate auditor Sam Keller, careful to a fault, has decided to live it up for a change. And what better spot for business-class hedonism than the boomtown of Dubai, where resort islands materialize from open ocean, fortunes are made overnight, and skiers crisscross the snowy slopes of a shopping mall. But when a colleague is murdered during a night on the town, Sam soon finds himself waist-deep in a bewildering, lethal mix of mobsters, prostitutes, and crooked cops.

Ten years ago, Andrea Hayes was the best master bombmaker in the business. Young, beautiful, and deadly, she was the favourite of her Irish republican masters. Then it all went wrong. Five children were killed, when disruption was all that was intended. It all became too much, and she turned away from her trade.… Now, a new Andrea Hayes lives a safe suburban life, with her loving husband and young daughter. Safe in the knowledge that her past is another country. But then her daughter is kidnapped and the past has come knocking.

The new novel by the author of the best-selling The World Walker series. 'My name is Daniel Harbin, and I'm a child of The Deterrent.' What if a superhuman turned out not to be so super...or even human? Britain's superhero, The Deterrent, was unveiled to the world in 1979 and disappeared two years later. The truth about his origins has never been revealed. The rumours about his children - those that survived - and their mysterious abilities have never been confirmed. Until now....

Time's up. You're Next. "All he had to do was name the woman he wanted. It was that easy. They would do all the hard work. "Detective Sergeant Mark 'Heck' Heckenburg is investigating the disappearance of 38 different women. Each one was happy and successful until they vanished without a trace. Desperate to find her missing sister, Lauren Wraxford seeks out Heck's help.

Charlie Howard travels the globe writing suspense novels for a living. To supplement his income - and keep his hand in - Charlie has a small side business: stealing for a very discreet clientele on commission. When a mysterious American offers Charlie 20,000 euros to steal two small monkey figurines to match the one he already has, Charlie is suspicious; the job seems too good to be true, and of course, it is. He soon finds the American beaten nearly to death, while the third figurine has disappeared.

One shot. One kill. A simple plan. A simple operation. But it doesn't take much to throw off the assassination of a corrupt US senator in a foreign country. Not once the cartel gets involved. Can Riley "Bear" Logan and Jack Noble fight through the waves before a traitor gets to them first?

Charles "Jay" Tice was a legend throughout the world of international intelligence. But secretly he was also a traitor, reputedly selling information that will seriously compromise the security of the United States for decades to come. Since his treachery was exposed, Tice has been kept under strict surveillance in a maximum security prison. Then one morning, his cell is discovered empty. Jay Tice has vanished - without tripping an alarm or leaving any trace of his passing.

What do you buy and sell when the global markets reach saturation point? The markets themselves. Thirty years from now the big players in global capitalism have moved on from commodities. The big money is in conflict investment. The corporations keep a careful watch on the wars of liberation and revolution that burn constantly around the world. They guage who the winners will be and sell them arms, intelligence, and power. In return for a slice of the action when the war is won.

In one terrible moment, paramedic Sophie Phillips' life is ripped apart - her police officer husband is shot on their doorstep and their ten-month-old son is abducted from his bed. Suspicion surrounds her possibly corrupt husband, but Sophie believes the attack is much more personal. Sophie enlists her husband's partner in the hunt for her son, but will the history they share prove harmful to Sophie's ability to complete her mission?

When a forgotten journal materializes decades after Drake Ramsey's father vanished in the Amazon jungle, Drake decides to follow in his footsteps and search for the legendary treasure of the Inca empire hidden in the lost Inca city of Paititi.

At 33, Ryan Kealey has achieved more in his military and CIA career than most men can dream of in a lifetime. He's also seen the worst life has to offer and is lucky to have survived it. But being left alone with his demons is no longer an option. The CIA needs him badly, because the enemy they're facing is former U.S. soldier Jason March. Ryan knows all about March - he trained him.

Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.