Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind and joined a 12-step group for reformed killers. When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.

January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder. Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing is simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past. Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion --- and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls. None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see. On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. The U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology --- and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.

Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering. Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him.

In TAKE-OUT, Rob Hart has collected 16 stories of culinary crime and noir that will have you savoring every deadly bite. In the title story, a gambler falls into debt with the enigmatic owner of a Chinatown gambling parlor, and must run odd --- and sometimes dangerous --- deliveries to clear his ledger. In "How to Make the Perfect New York Bagel," the owner of one of New York City's last old-school bagel shops has to defend his storefront --- in the past, from the mob, and in the present, from a bank. In "Creampuff," a bakery with the hottest pastry in town has to hire a bouncer to control the unruly line, with tragic results.

After more than a year on the road, amateur private investigator Ash McKenna is ready to face the demons he ran away from in New York City and has decided to become a PI for real. But within moments of stepping off the plane, Ginny Tonic, the drag queen crime lord who once employed him --- and then tried to have him killed --- asks to see him. One of her newest drag queen soldiers has gone missing, and Ginny suspects she’s been ensnared by the burgeoning heroin scene on Staten Island. Ginny wants Ash to find her. He accepts, and quickly learns there’s something much bigger at play. As Ash navigates deadly terrain, he find that his most dangerous adversary might be his own past. Because those demons he ran away from have been waiting for him to come back.

Amateur private investigator Ash McKenna's time is about to expire --- on his visa, that is. Having fled the demons that haunted him in the U.S., Ash has been laying low in Prague for nearly three months. As he contemplates his next stop, a man named Roman appears, claiming to work for the U.S. government and possessing intimate knowledge of Ash's many sins. Roman offers to protect him in exchange for a favor. A bank employee named Samantha Sobolik is set to receive a package containing covert information in a handoff on the Charles Bridge. Ash must intercept the package and deliver the contents to Roman. But when Ash gets to the bridge, he discovers that the handoff is actually a hit.

Despite good intentions, Ash McKenna made a mess of his life in New York, so he tried to build a new one in Portland. But after a traumatic turn of events, he ends up on a commune in the Georgia woods, binge-drinking cheap whiskey and waiting for his passport to flee the country and nightmares that have followed him. Then a man is found dead. Known only as “Crusty Pete,” the commune dweller is sprawled in the dirt, having fallen from a high rope bridge. It’s written off as an accident, but Ash suspects something more sinister. As he looks into Pete’s death, Ash is shocked to find that the supposedly peaceful community houses a rogue faction preparing to commit an unspeakable act of violence.

Between his own violent tendencies, the shadow cast by his father's death, and a self-destructive revenge quest, Ash McKenna made a mess of his life in NYC. He is now in Portland, where he has taken a job as a bouncer in a vegan strip club. When one of the club's dancers asks Ash for help finding her daughter, he declines. But soon he is held at gunpoint by a man in a chicken mask and told to keep away from the girls. As Ash navigates an unfamiliar city, he finds himself embroiled in a labyrinthine plot involving a ruthless drug cartel and a scandal that could reach one of the most powerful men in Portland.

Ashley McKenna is a blunt instrument. Find someone, scare someone, carry something; point him at the job, he gets it done. He generally accepts money upon completion, though a bottle of whiskey works, too. That's until Chell, the woman he loves, leaves him a voicemail looking for help --- a voicemail he gets two hours after her body is found. Ash hunts for her killer, running afoul of a drag queen crime lord and stumbling into a hard-boiled role-playing game that might be connected to a hipster turf war.