Stumped

The brutal murder of a young married woman during an annual cricket match in the sleepy countryside village of Bundary near Bristol forms the backdrop to a novel of illicit affairs, an escort agency and the attempted break-up of an international drug smuggling ring based in the Balkans and operating in Britain and Eastern Europe.

Solving the murder involves cooperation between the Avon and Somerset Police and officers from the West Midlands who are working with The National Crime Agency to discover how drugs are being imported into Britain from The Balkans.

The visiting cricket team captain is a known drug dealer from the Wolverhampton area who is offered amnesty of a potential prison sentence if he will go undercover to try to break up the drug ring.

This brings him into contact with one of the suspects for the murder as he travels to Dubrovnik and Montenegro, where he meets up with the operators of the drug cartel who own a vineyard near Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

Some Service to the State

The year is 1925. In the borderlands of a newly partitioned Ireland, a doctor new to Northern Ireland begins a search for a missing patient, a young girl who has fallen pregnant.Meeting a wall of silence, she enlists the help of a local, a former IRA volunteer recently released from jail. Their enquiry brings them into contact with a community still suffering from the wounds of civil war. More worrying for them, they find they are beginning to rattle skeletons that some powerful people would prefer went undisturbed.As they slowly begin to unravel the truth of the girl’s fate, they find that the traces they are following lead to some crimes more monstrous that they ever previously considered.“Some Service to the State is a superb book with dialogue that would not be out of place on the stage of the Abbey Theatre. Mick McAlinden is a former IRA man caught on the wrong side of the border and the wrong side of history: a law student who ends up working in an abattoir. Aidan McQuade has created a character whose travails highlight the thwarted dreams and the tragedy of partition for so many people in post-revolutionary Ireland.”- Ronan McGreevy, journalist and author of Great Hatred: the Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson.“Like Graham Greene, Dennis Lehane, and Louise Penny before him, McQuade takes the humble crime story and uses it like a scalpel to probe and expose the darkness in human souls and human society.”- Martin W. Sandler, National Book Award-winning author and historian.“The sparring sparky dialogue is a delight and never fails to vivify the darkness. McQuade shows prodigious skill in shining a spotlight on the scandal of mother-and-baby homes and in brilliantly imbuing the past with his own potent blend of heart, soul and wit.”- Rosemary Jenkinson, multi-award winning playwright and author of Marching Season.

Shoot for the Face

Jason Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he had slept soundly. After surviving 20 years in the high-octane world of Russian investment banking, he knew that his time there as the high-flying international banker to the oligarchs was coming to an end.

The bank he’d built from scratch in the 90s, Falcon Capital, his pride and joy, was being assailed on all sides by shadowy forces in Russian society with impeccable government connections, the “siloviki”. To compound matters, his chief risk officer had approved a loan to an oligarch, Ari Kandinskiy, who was down on his luck and had all but gone broke. His efforts to recover desperately needed funds from the stricken oligarch would pit him against powerful interests in Moscow – including Ruslan Akhmatov, the mercurial emissary of Russia’s most troublesome regional governor.

Desperate times would call for desperate measures. Jason Rogers would have to call one final time on the services of Dmitry Ovchinnikov, the Siberian hitman who was a little rough around the edges and dressed like an American cowboy – but who had proved so terribly effective at neutralising his client’s enemies over the years and despatching them to cemeteries all over Russia.

Dmitry Ovchinnikov’s capacity for violence and appetite for dispensing his own, unique brand of “justice” would result in some of Moscow’s most bloody executions in recent memory. It would trigger an orgy of revenge killings which would see the body parts of prominent members of the Russian underworld scattered all over the white tablecloths of that city’s finest restaurants.

Would Jason Rogers come to regret the murderous gang war that he had unleashed on the streets of Moscow? Would he become one of its victims?

Only time would tell…

Older

A sociopath managing an aged care facility: What could go wrong?

Precocious and pretty Maxine Gilbert is a clever and talented nine-year-old, adored by a doting father. She is also cruel, sadistic and without remorse, delighting in manipulating others and torturing small animals. When her mother is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, Maxine is disgusted, not just by her mother’s disability, but by the inconvenience it brings. Watching a nurse care for her mother, Maxine learns that nurses can hurt or heal. Maxine decides to be a nurse when she grows up.

Forty years on, after countless complaints against her nursing in various clinical care settings, Maxine scams a job as Managing Director of an aged care facility, Treetops, and the residents are in for a rough time.

Under Maxine’s management, physical and medical restraint of residents is encouraged, and neglect, poor hygiene, and restrictions of residents’ liberty, nourishment and medical support are exhorted. Frightened, depressed, and malnourished residents are left isolated, locked away, and laying in their own waste. They develop excruciating infections, suffer illness, and even die. Maxine faces rising antagonism from Treetops’ residents, and their friends and family. 

A new carer at Treetops, Seleena, who recently escaped an abusive marriage, cannot stay silent. Along with warning residents, and others, Seleena writes a letter of complaint. After finding a suspicious lump in her breast, could Maxine, who always hated illness and vulnerability in others, finally learn compassion? Or will she continue her ruthless ways?

Lasseter's Truth

Jack Johnson is both lucky and unlucky. He survives the Vietnam war as a decorated helicopter pilot, marries the girl he left behind, and lands on his feet at Australia’s leading advertising agency, as a launch pad to spectacular success in the industry. Lucky, you might say.

But luck can change. Jack is hit with a bogus criminal charge that chases him into the Great Australian Desert, in a quest for Lasseter’s fabled gold reef.

But Jack is not the only one looking. A mysterious Chinese company called Triple Eight is buying up leases in the desert, and people are dying.

Back home, he leaves not only a heartbroken wife but a beautiful and very determined daughter who has had her own problems. Expelled from Australia’s most prestigious public school, Tess Johnson vows to clear her father’s name.

Lasseter’s Truth follows them both as they take on the odds. A story that ranges from the greed of the nineties, into a famous legend of Australia’s outback, with a compelling climax for our own time.

Karma

It began with a single crime, under the canopy of the giant redwoods of California. He committed that crime. He never took responsibility for any of it. Everything was always someone else’s fault, especially hers. He would get her; he would punish her. For him it became an obsession. He had no other life to lead.It began with a single crime. She was the victim. She would not let the crime define her. She had a life to lead. She would lead it to the full.From California to Cambridge, England, Robert built the downward spiral of his existence, and his darkness closed in on him. From California to Cambridge, England, Martha lived life to the full, building an upward spiral from which joy and friendship spread out.Bad karma, good karma. Which will prove the stronger?

Jupiter

The story of Isaac Marcu Moritz and the great affliction of his childhood caused by a lightning bolt launched by Jupiter, god of the sky, the father of gods and men, and the patron of Rome. 

The bolt kills his aged mentor whose knowledge of history and languages is transferred to the traumatised mind of the boy. He is plagued throughout his life by visions and torment of Rome’s ancient rulers and gods.

Growing up on the family farm his skill in the capture of flies by hand learned by watching his grandmother’s action while at the packing table leads to success in rural land sales and a posting in a university entomology research program of hand-fly-capture. He establishes Snap-Zap-Solutions with the aim of eradicating the pestilence to improve the human condition.

Will he ever understand himself enough to empathise or forever live in abeyance wondering who or what is really driving his life?

Joint Enterprise

On a winter’s night, in a grubby alleyway, in a northern town, Josh, a 17-year-old A Level student, is found stabbed to death.

The police investigation soon focuses on the four people who were in the alleyway with him that night – Josh’s girlfriend, Naomi and three members of a local gang, involved in drugs and violence.

The three gang members are charged but the police start to look more closely at Naomi. New evidence emerges which seems to point to Naomi.

Could Naomi be complicit with the gang? Is she a victim or a suspect? Or are the police looking in the wrong place? Soon her lawyers become Naomi’s only hope of a life beyond this nightmare.

An emotional exploration of the impact of a murder on family and friends combined with the roller coaster ride of twists and turns which make for a high-profile criminal investigation and trial.

Fort Avenue

You can’t lie down with your back against the wall.Ex-NYPD officer turned LA Bounty Hunter Tucker Brag has traded the beat on New York’s mean streets for chasing bounties in the City of Angels.When Jimmy Brag, Tucker’s father, a veteran in the U.S. Army and reclusive doomsayer, dies, Tucker is surprised by a windfall bequeathed to his only child.Sorting out Jimmy’s affairs, Tucker is inadvertently thrust into the crosshairs of one of LA’s most powerful crime figures. On the run and looking over his shoulder, he is then faced with a past family tragedy, bringing heartbreaking memories back into focus. They compel Tucker to attempt now what he couldn’t hope to achieve as a young boy.Tucker will first need to defeat a ruthless enemy before planning to fulfil his own desire for revenge.PRAISE FOR ROGUE JUSTICE‘A rollercoaster journey of criminal justice. For readers of mysteries and thrillers who prefer darker and more dangerous tales. A deftly plotted, intelligently accomplished novel that is as fast-paced as it is gripping.’ – Readers Favorite‘Great depth of character and a thrill to read.’ – Literary Titan

Ex-Cop 2 - Secrets Are Only Made for Liars

In this thrilling novel set in 2007 at the Metropolitan Police, follow PC Lawson on a journey where his lifelong dream of catching a notorious villain comes true, but not in the way he expected. A real mystery unfolds as a lorry escapes the UK, leaving the police puzzled, suspecting that it may contain drugs. The ingenious story follows a cunning and wealthy villain who turns the tables on the Met by exploiting their own policies to humiliate them in front of the PSD, the public, the press, and the media. 

PC Lawson knows that catching this criminal will be no easy feat, and if the Met is to succeed, they must overcome their past, learn to forgive, and trust again. However, with the PSD and half of the force breathing down his neck, Lawson knows that the only person who can help him is someone he cannot afford to be associated with. It’s a huge risk, one that could cost him his life and his career, but he’s willing to take it. Follow along as Lawson navigates a dangerous game of cat and mouse, where the stakes are high and the consequences are dire.

Ex-Cop

In London, 1989, the metropolitan police are dealing with the biggest drug crime. Drug problem is rising in the capital and it is up to them to stop these lowlife dealers from smuggling drugs in their city.

PC detective Barry Dermative is the expert when it comes to drugs criminals, however, although he works for the police, Barry does not obey the law. He takes his job seriously and has his mind on only one man; Maverick Loki, more commonly known as Loki.

Barry failed to catch Loki before and has hungered ever since like a wolf. But when he finally succeeds in the arrest, the tables totally turn for him and his life gets turned upside down.

After spending time behind bars, Barry feels hopeless and just full of regret. The only chance for him now is redemption as he gets requested from his close friend, Michelle, to go and help her son, Lucas; to stop him from following his own footsteps. Barry needs to stop Lucas from getting his life messed up by the drug gang, just like they ruined his!

Conduit

A woman's quest to rescue the child victims of human trafficking leads her on a perilous journey fraught with danger. Will her faith and the gift of "sight" inherited from her beloved grandmother be enough to sustain her on an epic voyage of self-discovery and good conquering evil?