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Barbara Nickless

Biography

Barbara Nickless

Barbara Nickless is the #1 Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the “blisteringly original” Sydney Parnell crime novels featuring a railway cop and her K9 partner. About the series, Jeffery Deaver promises “you’ll fall in love with one of the best characters in thriller fiction.” The series has been optioned for television and has won two Colorado Book Awards and twice won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. The first book in the series was a Suspense Magazine “Best of 2016” selection. Her publisher is launching a new series, The Sparrow, about a forensic semiotician who analyzes the signs and symbols left at crime scenes. Barbara’s essays and short stories have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Criminal Element, Penguin Random House and other markets. She also teaches creative writing to veterans at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Barbara is often in the Rocky Mountains where she loves to hike, cave and drink single malt Scotch --- although usually not at the same time.

Barbara Nickless

Books by Barbara Nickless

At First Light
by Barbara Nickless - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On the muddy banks of the Calumet River, a body has been found posed next to a series of mysterious glyphs and bearing wounds from a ritualistic slaying. Chicago detective Addie Bisset knows only one man who can decipher the message left by the killer: her friend, Dr. Evan Wilding. A brilliant forensic semiotician, Evan decodes the etchings as Viking Age runes. They suggest either human sacrifice or righteous punishment. But to what god? And for what sins? Only one thing is clear from the disturbing runic riddles: there are more victims to come. As Evan races to determine the identity of the Viking Poet, he and Addie uncover the killer’s most terrifying secret yet: the motive.

Gone to Darkness
by Barbara Nickless - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Iraqi war vet and former railway cop Sydney Parnell is now the youngest homicide detective in Denver’s Major Crimes Unit. In the past, gut instinct has served her and her K9 partner, Clyde, well. But it’s not a trait that Len Bandoni, her old nemesis turned reluctant mentor, admires. Not until Sydney’s instincts lead to their first case: a man tortured and beaten to death, then left in a refrigerated train car with cryptic messages carved into his body. The victim is a well-liked member of an elite club called the Superior Gentlemen. At first glance, the club appears harmless. But beneath its refined surface swim darker currents. As Sydney, Clyde and Bandoni investigate the grisly murder, the three develop a bond that carries them through a shocking series of crimes and a horrifying conspiracy.