Showing results by publisher "Crossroad Press" in All Categories

A murderer is stalking the Windy City, carving out the eyes of his victims as grisly souvenirs. When shy Ellen Gordon finds a diary left behind in a coffee shop, she can't keep from reading it. And when she meets the author in person, he's just as charming as his writing. Only when she reads further does she find clues to the identity of Chicago's terrifying serial killer. Could it be the author, himself? Ellen will have to uncover the truth about her new boyfriend quickly if she doesn't want to become the killer's next victim.

Gothic Ghosts is a collection of 19 true stories of haunted houses, ghosts, and eyewitness encounters with the spirit world. Included are true accounts of interactions with the Other Side from the states of Georgia, New York, California, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut, as well as encounters in Switzerland and Canada.

Gary Karkofsky, a.k.a. Merciless: The Supervillain Without MercyTM, has decided to give up supervillainy and embrace the path of righteousness. Unfortunately, he's terrible at it, and no one wants him to be their superheroic protector. That all changes when a talking raven arrives with the perfect quest to make his mark: Rescue the president's daughter from Dracula.

Diane Boston lives with her Marfan syndrome-afflicted 13-year-old son in a suburb of Chicago and teaches social studies at the high school, where her students have voted her Teacher of the Year. But she has some dark secrets. Her ex-husband Greg always suspected that Diane kept things from him, but he has no idea just how right he is.

Blair Bowman is the sleek, sharp, 35-year-old anchorwoman for a New Orleans TV station. Totally devoted to her career, she's never considered having a family - until she does a story on career women like herself who are creating a new baby boom. Then her long-buried feelings about children begin to surface. Blair is ready to have a child alone, until her sexy neighbor, 29-year-old Linc Langtry, offers to father the child and marry Blair, so her baby can be legitimate. Blair is sure she's not in love with Linc, but they arrange to marry and divorce in one year.

On this February morning it looks like winter is about to heat up on Tango Key. Sometime in the night, Judge Henry Michael, his wife, and two small sons were murdered. Butchered. The quiet little Florida island is reeling in horror. But clues are scarce. And the only thing for certain is that whoever did it - enjoyed it. Detective Aline Scott knows she's going to have to dig deep on this one. But when there's another brutal murder, she hits pay dirt.

Sullivan was a working stiff, a before-the-mast sailor, when he was taken in by the Family almost 150 years ago. They gave him immortality — and an undying hunger for human blood. Since then, Sullivan has been on the prowl. And what better place for a night creature than modern San Francisco, its streets crowded with runaways, drifters, tourists, violent gangs, and nameless punks? Food is plentiful. Even food for the darkest hungers of the inhuman heart.

Gary Karkofsky, a.k.a. Merciless: The Supervillain Without MercyTM, is enjoying the bliss of a newly rebooted Earth. Ultragod is President of the United States, most supervillains are either harmless or imprisoned, and superpowers are being used to benefit all mankind. Of course it couldn't last. Suffering a near fatal heart attack and under attack by extra-dimensional evils, Gary struggles to find an object that might repair the universe he's unwittingly damaged the fabric of.

Magic, mad science, and teenagers are a recipe for trouble. As the only living necromancer, fifteen-year-old Avery Special has too much trouble as it is. Trying to use her dark powers for good, she awakens a cyborg from a coma. The superintelligent Tonika is grateful and full of plans to help Avery help others, but the more Avery helps, the more trouble she gets in.

Sullivan meets the grueling demands of the Navy's basic flight program, learning to handle high-altitude crises and hazardous landings.

TM has managed to fall into a comfortable routine as the (acting) Supreme Archmage of Earth. More hero than villain these days, he’s recruited to a shadowy black ops team with a shocking mission: assassinate Helios: The Sun King, ruler of Tomorrow Island. Gary immediately twigs to the fact he’s the fall guy even as he has his own score to settle with Helios. Joining him will be a number of fan favorite characters as well as several new additions to the surreal world of the Supervillainy Saga.

Newspaper reporter Colleen Caruso just wants her unruly curls tamed into smooth, sleek locks. Instead, she finds her stylist dead, facedown in a shampoo sink. Faster than you can say Aqua Net, Colleen starts investigating. The case gets even hairier when the owner of a local fitness studio seems to have jumped from a plane...without a parachute.

Tennessee State Representative Jack Walker hires Ashley Owens to find his missing, drug-addicted wife, and soon enough Ash finds himself unexpectedly at odds with Chattanooga’s various underworld gangs - both the living and the unliving. Fortunately, he has Zora Banks, a beautiful, Southern conjure woman of mixed race in his corner. Together, they find themselves embroiled in a far-reaching occult organization’s grab for ultimate power.

Ex-newspaperman Roger Newton's adventure begins when Claude Lavigne, a power company employee, sees something in the forests of "the gore" - a tiny swatch of unclaimed land created by a surveyor's mistake. His sense of reality unhinged, Lavigne commits suicide. When Lavigne's son, best friend, and an old black man risk an expedition into the gore, Newton, attempting to stop them, upsets a fragile balance and looses an ancient, nameless fear among the people of Vermont.

Valko can see the last moments of a victim's life. It comes at a price - a scrap of flesh cut from his brain and replaced with an implant. Bound to a drug that lets him use his insight but brings with it the pain of synthetic emotion, he's at war with himself. Now, a killer has found a way to hide from him, and two people are dead. Someone wants to keep their secrets buried. The trail leads out into the wasteland where death flies on the wind as nanotech dust. Manipulated and betrayed, Valko must get to the truth before his time runs out.

Big, sort-of-sloppy, brew-loving P.I. opens up his files on some of his most fascinating cases. Here are 10 stories and two novelettes, giving Nameless fans a page-turning potpourri of his toughest and most dangerous adventures. Case File is a 12-pack to be popped open and enjoyed on an off-duty afternoon. So sit back and spend some time with one of America's favorite P.I.'s who has caught more criminals - an imaginations - than any other gumshoe in recent American fiction.

Captain Cassius Mass can only run so far from his problems and the galaxy isn't big enough to hide from those pursuing him. Cassius soon finds himself blackmailed into a mission that will clear him of all charges as well as protect him from future persecution: bring an end to the civil war currently racking the galaxy. Accompanied by a new set of untrustworthy allies, the crew of the Melampus, and the A.I duplicate of his dead wife - Cassius needs to figure out how to not only deal with his target but also his employers. Because the entire universe is at stake.

Peter Stone is a poor black vampire who has found undeath isn't all it was promised to be. There's no vast riches, innate cool, or super-sex appeal. No, instead, there's working the graveyard shift at a gas station alongside the highway to Detroit. Oh, and the blood thing sucks, too. Working a second job as the sheriff of the undead, Peter is asked to serve as bodyguard to a famous vampire romance novelist visiting the city. He doesn't go 24 hours before she's dead and he's the primary suspect. There's also evidence it was one of the most powerful vampires in the world.

Agent G, now going by the name Case, thought he'd won. He'd exposed his former employers, shared black technology with the world, and killed the man who'd started it all. Unfortunately, history slows for no man. After a volcanic eruption decimates the United States, G spends the next decade witnessing humanity rebuild itself into a corporate-run dystopia. Preferring to the be the boot rather than the ant, Case has become a powerful executive in the new cyberpunk world.

Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, a devoted husband and father, and a devout Catholic, was executed in 1943 as a result of his refusal to serve in the Nazi army. Before taking this stand Jägerstätter consulted both his pastor and his local bishop, who instructed him to do his duty to the fatherland and to obey the law, an instruction that violated his conscience.