1968: Vietnam. Deep in the battle ravaged jungle twelve US Marines confront an enemy infinitely more terrifying and savage than the Viet Cong. An immortal evil. An agent of the apocalypse lurks watching. Waiting. 1988: Manhattan; the economic hub of global commerce. Six survivors must reunite to destroy the bloodthirsty horror they believed defeated and buried decades ago. These six ex-marines are about to discover that some wars never end. And the Heart of War beats eternal. LOCK AND LOAD

Forty years ago, Seth Rigal was a man to be feared - a serial strangler with a string of victims. Now nearly seventy and tormented by a lifetime of monstrous violence, Rigal lives on the verge of poverty and quietly waits for the death he knows he deserves. Tortured and confused, still tormented by the drives that made him a killer in his youth, Rigal finds himself almost unconsciously stalking the daughter of his final victim - only to have his precious anonymity snatched from him when he accidentally saves her son's life. Seth Rigal, formerly known as the Gripper, just became a local celebrity. The bodies won't stay buried any longer. White Knuckle is a complex and intense psychological thriller, distorting the ever-popular retired gunslinger motif into a rain-slick urban fantasy of murderous men and the needs that drive them.

An illustrated holiday tale for nearly all denominations. Jasper "Kat" Petty has a case of Grinchitis. Most folks suffer a Scrooge-moment now and then, but for Kat, it's a virulent strain that has hung on for sixteen years. In high school, young Petty had the dream of being a novelist tucked into one pocket and a national writing award stashed in the other. But that was before his dad died, leaving the family in financial chaos. Forced to give up college and take a blue-collar job, he now watches his friends start families while he struggles through a string of "Caroles" who love him and leave him in short order-nearly always at Christmas. Enter: Chi, a comic devil who may or may not be God himself. The silver-haired eccentric with the wisecracking mouth and cockeyed view of living and loving shows Kat how to drop his prickly barriers and take one last shot at fulfilling his dreams-with of all things? Another Carole.