Dramatized Mystery

It was the kind of internet posting guaranteed to attract the attention of the American cable TV show Chasing History's Monsters: "Dog-headed men sighted by tourists in Avignon." Drawn to France to explore the myth of Saint Christopher and the cynocephalus, or the dog-headed, archaeologist and television host Annja Creed finds herself repeatedly and inexplicably targeted by vicious mercenaries. Her best defense is to trace this brutal violence back to its source, which she soon discovers to be a millionaire and self-professed descendant of King Charlemagne.

When iron clears leather, anything can happen. In Frank Morgan's case, a sudden duel with an assassin has left an innocent woman with a bullet in her back - and a friendship between Frank and a young Texas Ranger in tatters. Wanting to make up for his part in the tragedy, Frank rides to central Texas to help Ranger Tyler Beaumont put down the so-called Fence-Cutting War. But as big ranchers battle small ones, an outlaw gang has hellish plans of its own.

World War III has passed and John Thomas Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist and survival expert has at last reached his home, only to find that his wife and two children have fled for their lives. With the knowledge that his family has survived the nuclear holocaust, Rourke, with the aid of young Paul Rubenstein, must find his loved ones.

Helen Stoner consults Sherlock Holmes about the death of her twin sister, Julia, who died before her wedding, crying that: it was the Speckled Band!Holmes must investigate their mother's estate and the unpleasant Dr. Roylott, Helen's stepfather, who allows gypsies to camp on his estate and has both a cheetah and a baboon running amok in the grounds. But can Helen be believed? Is Dr Roycroft as bad as he seems?

Forensic evidence in a couple of assassinations reveals a curious link between the killers: identical fingerprints and genetic code. Could it be twins? But when the next killer's traces show the same result, law enforcement authorities are baffled. The bizarre problem is entrusted to CURE's Dr. Harold Smith and he puts Remo and Chiun on a trail leading back decades to a literal dead end.

For 17 years, Ty Mattson never knew if his father survived the Mexican War. But when he receives news that his father is alive - and he's joined the Confederate forces of General John Morgan - Ty leaves home to enlist with Morgan's Raiders. Owen Mattson turns out to be everything Ty imagined he would be: a good man, a true mentor, a great soldier. But a Confederate assassin's bullets nearly divide father and son yet again.

San Francisco's only PI with an eye into the supernatural, is having one of those months. His bad mood drives him to his local pub where he encounters his latest client, a Leprechaun who's lost his adopted niece, a runaway Dryad, and that's where the problems begin. Some days it pours and when Landau Bain, the city's crankiest wizard, arrives on Tony's doorstep, he knows what's coming down isn't rain.

What do you get when you cross a maniac with a microwave? An army experiment gone wrong - and a walking power plant with a compulsion to kill. Complete with optical sensors, capacitors and rechargeable batteries, Elizu Roote has been transformed to a bionic monster whose death zaps are nothing sort of...electrifying. Not even a body trained to the perfection that is Sinanju can withstand a jolt from this human lightning bug. Remo's in a coma and now it's up to Chiun and Dr. Smith to find a way to short out this live wire's lethal charge, ASAP.

Aral has learned that one of the few people willing to help him in his darkest days has been imprisoned by Maylien’s uncle, King Thauvik. Aral knows he can’t let an old friend die, but the alternative is to return to the life he left years ago. It was the death of Thauvik’s half brother that earned Aral the name Kingslayer, and now he is thrust into a war that will see no end until he lives up to his name....

On assignment in the Philippines, archaeologist Annja Creed meets with a contact to verify some information. Easy enough. But when the man doesn't turn out to be whom he said he was, Annja finds herself handcuffed, blindfolded and kidnapped. And to make matters worse, she's a prisoner of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf, a notorious terrorist group. Desperate to escape, Annja is able to flee after slaying one of her captors. But she soon gets lost in the hostile jungle, which is rumored to be haunted by the spirits of Moro warriors who fought off conquistadors with their blades.

In Prague researching the legend of the Golem, a fantastical "living" creature made of clay, archaeologist Annja Creed is faced with an even bigger mystery on her hands when someone begins murdering the homeless. And every day there's a fresh corpse. As the suspicion that Golem is behind the deaths circulates quietly on the streets of the city, Annja cannot resist unraveling the thread that binds science to superstition. According to Czech history, these aren't new attacks.

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

Thanks to Chiun's "emptying basin" technique, past U.S. presidents remember nothing about CURE, America's most secret defense organization. Now a former head of state believed to have lost his mind suddenly finds it - and calls Dr. Harold Smith to say hi. But before Remo and Chiun can redo their amnesia trick, the old guy is kidnapped by bumbling eco-terrorists eager to sell him to a desert despot with a grudge.

When John Rourke's daughter is kidnapped by a Russian agent, Rourke follows their trail across a frozen Arctic wasteland - and stumbles upon a small pocket of humanity living in a tropical paradise surrounded by ice and snow. The community of Icelandic descendants has flourished in seclusion during the long years following the fiery holocaust, unaware of the fierce and bloody struggle in the outside world between the forces of freedom and Communist tyranny.

On the trail to Hangtree, a gang of bandits give chase to a teenage gunslinger. Young Bill is bracing for the end when the crack of a Winchester scatters the bandits. Sam Heller, Hangtree lawman, has saved another life. And Bill will beg Heller to save one more.... Bill rode in from East Texas, where Cullen Baker, the original quick-draw artist, fights a life-and-death battle with a corrupt robber baron for control of the Torrent River. Bill came seeking help from Cullen’s old pal, Johnny Cross, who agrees to ride east to lend a bullet or two.

Hands bleeding, joints aching, John Rourke watches the remaining space shuttles of the Eden Project fleet land. But what kind of world have they returned to? A Soviet madman bent on world domination, a Nazi resurrection, and one of the Eden crew murdered within the first day of the fleet’s return. John Rourke, The Survivalist, must serve as judge, jury, and executioner in the pursuit of justice and the defense of freedom in The Survivalist 12: The Rebellion.

Ignatius O’Reilly is famous for his beautifully crafted counterfeit money. John Henry Sixkiller is famous for hunting criminals into the most violent and dangerous worlds most lawman dare not go. Now, the Deputy U.S. Marshal is zeroing on O’Reilly in San Francisco, when the case blows up in his face. Instead of O’Reilly, Sixkiller finds a beautiful woman and a meddling Federal agent from the Secret Service. O’Reilly gets away and the hunt leads Sixkiller after the woman, the counterfeiter, and the Fed into the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains.

In the year 2060, Zach Johnson, the world's only freelance private investigator, tackles his strangest case yet - solving the murders of two elves at the North Pole. Santana Clausa, the micro-mini-skirt-clad bombshell and frost-haired mutant who runs the Pole, hires Zach to stop the killer or killers before they strike again, destroying the holiday for billions. If the media gets whiff of the murders at the "happiest, safest place on Earth", mass panic is sure to ensue - and that's never a good thing.

Trials, persecutions, false accusations, the Inquisition - for archaeologist and TV host Annja Creed, the current episode they're taping for her show is a fascinating one. But while Annja is filming the last segment in France, a vicious "accident" nearly kills her. It looks to be unintentional...until a man calling himself Cauchon claims responsibility.

In a world where evil will not die, Nazis dream of world domination. Soviet land forces count on their reborn particle beam weapons to gain the advantage, while their undersea brethren weigh the nuclear option; an option that will leave the planet a desolate rock in space. Albert Einstein once observed, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former." John Thomas Rourke and the forces of freedom couldn't agree more.