From the author of Blackman's Coffin, one of Amazon's Top 10 Mysteries for 2008
When his wife dies of ovarian cancer, Russell Mullins quits the Secret Service to repurpose his life. He joins a Washington D.C. private protection company and is assigned to guard Paul Luguire, a Federal Reserve executive and its chief liaison with the U.S. Treasury.
Mullins and Luguire form a strong friendship. So when a police detective calls in the middle of the night with word of Luguire's suicide, Mullins doesn't buy it. His doubts are reinforced by Amanda Church, a former Secret Service colleague now in the Federal Reserve's cyber-security unit. She uncovered a suspicious financial transaction initiated by Luguire only days before his death. He authorized unrequested funds to be transferred from the Federal Reserve to a regional bank.
Even stranger, after Luguire's suicide, Amanda finds the transaction has been erased from Federal Reserve records. The regional bank now shows the money wired from an offshore account in the name of Russell Mullins. Someone is setting Rusty up. And when the bank president is murdered, Mullins rockets to the top of the suspect list.
As a tenacious reporter develops leads, Mullins follows a conspiratorial trail of killing and kidnapping that leads from a shadowy mastermind to the possible destruction of America's financial system. In an age of Wall Street meltdowns and downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, the secretive Federal Reserve has a pivotal role.
Twelve targets are known. The clock is ticking. What, or who, is the thirteenth?
A native of western North Carolina, Mark sets most of his mysteries in Asheville and the surrounding Appalachian mountains. In addition to his Sam Blackman and Barry Clayton series, Mark has written two Young Adult mysteries: a thriller, A CONSPIRACY OF GENES, set in a children's hospital and an historical "locked-room" murder mystery, DEATH ON A SOUTHERN BREEZE, set on a train traveling from Charlotte to Charleston in the summer of 1860. Mark also has written the play "A DYING BUSINESS" and two short stories, TWO OF A KIND, available for the Kindle.
His most recent novel is the thriller THE 13th TARGET set in Washington D.C. For a sneak preview or for a tour of Sam Blackman's Asheville or a preview of his latest Sam Blackman mystery, THE SANDBURG CONNECTION, check out the video section of his author page.
