Winner of the 2013 Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction (category: World Wars) August 1940 He wasn't supposed to be on the plane. Now Major Faust is a prisoner of the English and he must escape before they break him. But every time he gets away, another woman is raped and murdered. The English need someone to hang. He's the hot suspect. He's got to catch the killer, even though he's helping the enemy. It's collaboration, almost treason. It's making a Deal with the Devil.

When his aunt is murdered, NATO Rapid Response officer Captain Charles Ellandun finds she's left him a literal locked-room puzzle. Granted, Aunt Edith is the one who taught him to pick locks. But what he finds in her garret hauls their family's past into the present and knocks his war-damaged brain even further askew. Now more people than usual are trying to kill him and unless he wants to be the next one dead, he must figure out why she is-fast. But the hunt for her killer takes him and his team members to places he'd rather not visit-to the art gallery where she died, the police station where he's a suspect, the past he'd thought safely locked away, the family he doesn't want to love, and the memories of the war that he just can't shake.

So you're writing a contemporary or historical mystery, or a romantic suspense thriller, or an urban fantasy, and your hero's packing but you don't know beans about guns. And your heroine's a ballistics technician in the city's Anti-Lycan Policing Organization (ALPO) and she's going to make the positive ballistics identification on the silver bullet that took down the head of the Wolverine gang, but you've got the same problem there. And you don't want to depend on CSI Paranormal, because you don't trust them to get the details right, much less real. Tremble no more, because this primer's for you. In this compact, easy-to-understand guide, an experienced mystery writer and target shooter takes you step by step through the mysteries of firearms and the ballistics that track them. You'll learn the theory behind forensic ballistics, the timeline of firearms and forensics development dating back to the 10th century, the different categories of firearms, and what's involved in a ballistics examination. It's topped off with some examples of real-life historical crimes, showing how forensics technology advanced since 1912. But there's more here than boring old facts. How does it feel to grab a large-caliber pistol and fire it in self-defense for the first time? What can a criminal do to camouflage a murder weapon? And how can a detective track a weapon so camouflaged? Which is best for a long-range firefight, a rifle, pistol, or shotgun? For a close-in, darkened room? What can a determined beginning shooter do to improve her wrist strength? There's a lot involved in firearms and ballistics. But with this handy primer in your Kindle, you'll be armed and ready to write before you can say "submachine gun." Oh, and did I mention it's illustrated?