Michael P. King

Murder at Mercy Creek, the second KD Thorne thriller, is out now. Whoo-hoo!

To celebrate the release, the eBooks for Murder at Mercy Creek and The Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent (KD Thorne Book 1) are each $2.99 (US) for the next seven days. After that, they go up to $4.99. (The paperback for Murder at Mercy Creek will be out shortly.)

Here’re the universal links to your favorite store:

Murder at Mercy Creek: https://books2read.com/u/mYyn6V

Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent:  https://books2read.com/u/bMwaXv

And here’s the Murder at Mercy Creek blurb:

A few fingers sticking up out of freshly dug dirt…

After an undercover FBI agent working for an interagency taskforce is found dead in a county park, National Defense Agency operatives KD Thorne and Jeffery Blunt are sent to Mercy Creek, Iowa, to run a parallel investigation into drug running, gun smuggling, and police corruption.

Who’s running the guns and trafficking the drugs? How was the undercover agent discovered? Which cops can be trusted and how many are on the take?

As KD and Blunt follow the money trail and contraband up and down Interstate 35 from Iowa to south Texas, the traffickers push back, eager to protect their anonymity and their business. Will KD and Blunt unravel the conspiracy before the traffickers find the opportunity to put them in their graves?

Murder at Mercy Creek is a swiftly paced thriller that will keep you reading into the night. If you like unpredictable plot twists and nail-biting suspense, you’ll love the second novel in the KD Thorne series.

…

I hope you enjoy it. And I’d love to hear what you think.

Happy reading!

As promised, The Murder Run: The Travelers Book 6 eBook is $0.99 through February 3. So if you need to catch up on the series, now’s your chance. Here’s the universal link to your favorite store:

 https://books2read.com/u/mdzyPE

The description:

Never cheat a partner. Always get revenge. . .

The Traveling Man takes on a quick and easy safecracking job…easy until his partners are murdered and he’s on the run.

His wife is trying to settle into her new role as a rich man’s girlfriend, so she isn’t at his side.

Who are these killers who are after him? And how are they connected to the government agency that wants the envelope he took from the safe?

With the help of a new associate, he tracks the killers until he’s steered into a trap. They think he’s cornered, but he’s still got one ace up his sleeve. . .

The Murder Run is a gritty, hard-boiled crime thriller. If you like criminal intrigue, surprising plot twists, and high-speed action, you’ll love the sixth novel in the Travelers series.

…

By the way, this is the first book to make mention of Clara Garcia and the National Defense Agency, the organization that KD Thorne and Jeffery Blunt work for in the KD Thorne thrillers.

The new KD Thorne thriller, Murder at Mercy Creek, should be out as an eBook in about two weeks.

All for now. Happy reading!

The Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent, the first KD Thorne thriller, is out now. Whoo-hoo!

(You may notice that the title has changed since the last time I mentioned it. I got some great advice from my editor, and I always try to listen to great advice.)

To celebrate the release, the eBook is $2.99 (US) for the next seven days. After that, it goes up to $4.99. (The paperback will be another six weeks.) Here’s the universal link to your favorite store: https://books2read.com/u/bMwaXv

And here’s the blurb:

Stolen nerve agent. Scheming terrorists. Federal agents running out of time.

A deadly nerve agent has been stolen from a federal containment facility. When the National Defense Agency is tasked with recovering it, operative KD Thorne and her partner Jeffery Blunt are put on point. Find the nerve agent. Eliminate the threat.

KD Thorne knows trouble.

Four tours in Afghanistan, a stint at NASA that went sideways, a marriage gone bad. She needs to work to keep her head on straight.

But as she and Blunt track the nerve agent from pharma executives and a military contractor team through white supremacists to a European far right faction, her personal life comes unraveled.

Can KD and Blunt stop the terrorists and retrieve the nerve agent before it’s released and innocents die?

The Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent is a fast-moving thriller that will keep you turning pages. If you like pulse-pounding action and surprising plot twists, you’ll love the first novel in the KD Thorne series.

…

I hope you enjoy it. And I’d love to hear what you think.

Happy reading!

Just a quick note. 

If you know someone who’d like to try the Travelers series, The Traveling Man eBook is currently free and The Computer Heist eBook is $.99 through January 25. Here are the universal links:

The Traveling Man https://books2read.com/u/bzoz6n

The Computer Heist https://books2read.com/u/bP9Vzz

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

Back in the day—you know, back when you wandered through bookstores just checking things out—I used to spend some time at the remainder table. (The table of deeply discounted books at the front of the store.) I’d sometimes find a book at that table that seemed interesting enough to take a chance on. If I liked it and it was in a series, I’d probably go to the library, check out the first one or two of the series and give them a read. Then if I was hooked, I’d start buying the rest. You’ve probably done something similar.

With eBooks, my pattern is pretty much the same. Lots of eBooks are occasionally free or discounted, so I’m always on the lookout for an opportunity to check out a series I think might be fun. One way I do this is by subscribing to eBook promotion sites, such as Bookbub or Early Bird Books, where I can check out discounted or free books just like I’m at the remainder table.

Last month, I picked up two books this way: Palm Beach Nasty by Tom Turner and A Dangerous Man by Robert Crais. Got a chance to read them both last week.

Palm Beach Nasty is the first book in Tom Turner’s series featuring police detective Charlie Crawford. I’d read Palm Beach Bedlam (book 8) previously, so I was interested in seeing how the series opened. Palm Beach Nasty did not disappoint. It was a fun read and effectively develops the key characters and overall ambiance of the series. So if you like straight-ahead, fast-paced thrillers with a Florida vibe, you might want to give this series a look.

A Dangerous Man is Robert Crais’s new Elvis Cole/Joe Pike book. (I was surprised to find it discounted.) I’ve read a lot of these books, but it’s been a while, so I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy them, particularly the ones that mainly focus on Joe Pike, who plays Hawk to Elvis Cole’s Spenser (If you catch the Robert B. Parker analogy). Pike is a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners kind of guy, and it’s always a pleasure to see Crais run him through his paces. 

One last note. If you know someone who’d like to try the Travelers series, The Traveling Man eBook is currently free and The Computer Heist eBook will be $.99 for a few days later this month. I’ll send a short email when the dates are set.

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

It’s the official release day for The Dark Web Scam: The Travelers Book 9 eBook version!

To celebrate the release, the eBook is $2.99 through December 16. Then the price goes up to $4.99. Here’s the universal link so you can choose your store:

https://books2read.com/u/bw7rjZ

There are some other special promos to celebrate the book 9 release. So if you know someone who’d like to try the Travelers series, now is their chance.

The Traveling Man: The Travelers Book One—Free. https://books2read.com/u/bzoz6n

The Computer Heist: The Travelers Book Two–$0.99. https://books2read.com/u/bP9Vzz

The Blackmail Photos: The Travelers Book Three–$0.99. https://books2read.com/u/3LDZd5

The book 9 description:

How could a little murder-for-hire scam go so wrong?

The Travelers and a computer hacker are operating a dark web con, taking cash from suckers who think they’re hiring contract killers. Easy money. And no one to complain to the police. But when an actual killer comes after them, they’re on the hunt for payback.

Who sent the assassin who killed their partner? And why is he stalking a newspaper reporter? 

Once the Travelers figure out who they’re up against, they set a plan in motion to rob him and take revenge, but as the cat-and-mouse game progresses, and the police get involved, the Travelers find they’re moving through a quagmire of drugs, sex trafficking, and greed where any misstep could lead to the morgue.

The Dark Web Scam is a hard-charging crime thriller. If you like criminal machinations, fast-paced action, and devious plot twists, you’ll love the ninth novel in the Travelers series.

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Hope you enjoy the new book! (Can’t wait to hear what you think.)

Here’s another in the series of emails about the thinking behind a Travelers book.

Always looking for a fresh angle to add that extra oomph to a Travelers thriller, that little extra something to make a particular book special. The Casino Switcheroo was no different.

Back in the prequel, The Double Cross, we found out about how the Travelers came to be, and something about the backstory of the young woman who will chose to become, by story’s end, the female half of the team. But we’ve never touched on who the Traveling Man was or what he did before the action that takes place in The Double Cross.

Who trained him? How did his first mentor find him? How does the Traveling Man feel about this mentor? Those are the questions that led to the creation of Alexander Koenig, the master thief who manipulates and cheats everyone, even his own partners.

And what if Koenig had ulterior motives for pulling the Travelers into a high-stakes scam, and the Traveling Man saw this scam as an opportunity to outmaneuver Koenig and steal the score?

That’s how we ended up with the casino heist that isn’t what it appears to be, and the cast of devious players frantically trying to outfox each other so that they can end up with the score and make their escape before the cops close in. It was lots of fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

If you haven’t had a chance to dip into The Casino Switcheroo, you can check it out here:

https://books2read.com/u/3nvrGP

Happy reading!

Just a short note this time.

Made it through the Derecho (land hurricane) with only a few large limbs down in our yard. And our power was only out for 28 hours. Pure luck! We got everything cleared up just in time for all the college students to reappear for the fall. Exciting times in central Iowa.

Making good progress on the Travelers book 9, tentative titled The Dark Web Scam. It involves the shenanigans that take place after a murder-for-hire scam goes wrong. Been having a lot of fun pulling all the pieces together. Hope you enjoy reading it! Planning to release it later this fall. 

In the meantime, there’re $0.99 eBook deals on the first 3 books of the Travelers series next week. So if you know someone who hasn’t read The Traveling Man, The Computer Heist, or The Blackmail Photos, now’s their chance to give the  series a try. I’ll send out a reminder with the book links on the day the deals start.

That’s all for now. Happy reading!