Stephen Carpenter

Once Upon a Time is Now

"A BLOCKBUSTER!" Entertainment Weekly For fans of Robert Parker's smart but tough-as-nails heroes, screenwriter Stephen Carpenter introduces a new character to the mystery genre, Jack Rhodes. Jack is an author and former boxer who was on his way to literary success when his life was blown apart by the horrific suicide of his fiancee. Devastated, Jack went on a fifteen-month alcoholic spiral into near-oblivion before eventually working past his demons to become a best-selling crime novelist. But just as Jack is finishing his fourth book about a vicious serial killer, the LAPD interrupts his quiet routine with news of what appears to be a copycat murder from his first book. There's just one problem--the murder took place before Jack's book was published. Jack begins to investigate, using techniques he learned through his meticulous research with police and FBI investigators. To his horror, Jack discovers that each of the murders he has imagined are all real...down to the most harrowing details. And Jack is Suspect Number One. Jack winds up on the run, a fugitive haunted by his past and hunted by the very cops and FBI agents he has learned from and befriended. Jack must use every resource he has to prevent the murder of a woman he knows will be next in his series of novels. He must piece together shattered memories from the fragments he recalls during his drunken fifteen-month blackout. Fast-paced and utterly unpredictable, KILLER reads like a rapid-fire crime thriller, with hairpin twists and turns and edge-of-your seat psychological horror. KILLER eludes easy answers to the impossible puzzle Jack must solve, and takes the reader on a journey unlike any other.

A Jack Rhodes Mystery

Killer

Killer In The Hills

The Grimm Curse Trilogy

Snow White

The Girl In The Red Hoodie

In the third of Stephen Carpenter's Jack Rhodes Mysteries, Jack, a washed-up former bestselling author, is drawn into one of the world's greatest literary mysteries: what happened to Ernest Hemingway's infamous lost manuscripts?When Jack's friend, former FBI Special Agent Melvin Beauchamp, asks him to authenticate a short story allegedly written by Hemingway, Jack is convinced that the lost manuscripts have been found-but by whom? Intrigued, Jack takes off on a hunt for the priceless trove of papers, and the alluring, mysterious young woman who may have them.As the two pair up on a whirlwind cross-country journey, they encounter a rogue's gallery of dangerous characters also on the hunt-a billionaire collector with a dark past, a couple of blood-thirsty mercenaries, and a twisted sociopath who will stop at nothing to acquire the priceless manuscripts.Facing danger, intrigue, and romance, Jack is forced to confront more than just the mystery of a lifetime. He must face his own demons, his lost literary ambitions, and long-buried memories of his own painful past-all of which lead him inevitably to the book's shattering conclusion: the truth always comes with a price.

Stephen Carpenter

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