Showing results by author "Grant McKenzie" in All Categories

Ian Quinn's day begins with an anonymous death threat. Nothing that’s new when you’re a court-ordered child protection officer. But the threat is nothing compared to the envelope stuffed into his hand by a foul-smelling vagrant who mutters the cryptic message 'he says he's sorry' before scurrying away. The envelope with his name scrawled across the front contains a lone visitor's pass to the Oregon State Penitentiary, and the accompanying message fills Ian's heart with revulsion. The author of the note destroyed Ian's life.

When Sally Blue was six years old, sleeping peacefully in her bed, a gunshot woke her up and subsequently ripped her world apart. Jolted awake by the scary noise, Sally ran to her parents' bedroom for comfort. Instead she found her mother slumped against the headboard, her ravaged nightdress drenched from a double-barreled wound.

Traveling the stripper circuit of small town America, Finn is a female impersonator with a golden voice who never made the big time. His latest stop is Port Sorrow, a rough-and-tumble coastal town on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula. In the audience tonight, rookie deputy sheriff Julia Rusk has drawn the short straw and is scanning the rowdy audience for signs of a suspected serial rapist.

During a cross border shopping trip, a family vanishes. No reason. No ransom. No cry for help. Bus driver Wallace Carver fears the worst when his family fails to meet him at the Bellingham, Washington mall. His anxiety is justifiably heightened when security cameras unexplainably show that he crossed the Peace Arch border alone. Now, all Wallace wants to do is get his wife and sons back. But first he has to work out why they were taken and by whom.

Ian Quinn has spent his life protecting children from the monsters that live among us. As a child protection officer, Ian places their lives above his own and has no qualms about getting his hands dirty when it comes to protecting those who can't protect themselves. Years ago Ian was unable to protect his own daughter when she was killed and has channeled the anger and sadness into his vocation. Ian has tried to bury his past. But the past is far from done with him.

In Seattle, an aging mutual-funds salesman falls prey to the lure of a young boy's flesh; in New York, a 10-year-old plunges an ice pick into the heart of a street hustler to prove his love for a girl he met on the Internet; in Chicago, a young girl waits in the rain outside a seedy downtown bar for a man she's never met to stagger home; in Vancouver, a teenager waits patiently on a deserted rooftop for a signal that one of North America's most notorious murderers is about to walk free.

Security guard Sam White's life falls apart when he arrives home to find his house a smoking ruin with the bodies of his wife and daughter inside. Then he receives a phone call from a stranger who claims that his wife and child are alive and Sam can still save them. But first, he must complete a few simple tasks. Sam joins forces with Zack Parker whose life has also been ripped apart by the same sadistic foe, and together they plunge into the dark, labyrinthine underworld of Portland, Oregon.