The Singularity-the looming point of no return when Artificial Intelligence surpasses human cognitive abilities, with consequences no one can foresee, and only a handful of people understand.
Rusty Mullins, ex-Secret Service, has never heard of the Singularity. He only knows that after the deadly challenges of his last job for security firm Prime Protection, he swore he'd stop risking his life on assignments. Then his good friend Ted Lewison, head of Prime Protection, asks him back for a routine mission guarding Chinese scientist Dr. Lisa Li and her seven-year-old nephew, Peter, and Mullins agrees.
The conference on AI bringing Dr. Li to Washington, DC, is barely under way when a team of assassins storms the room. The carnage is great but Mullins saves Dr. Li and Peter while the attackers kill the two other AI experts, along with Lewison.
His widow begs Mullins to uncover the power behind the group claiming credit for the assassinations. Is "Double H" homegrown, or part of a larger international conspiracy? Enter eccentric tech billionaire Robert Brentwood who requests Mullins continue to guard Dr. Li and Peter. Brentwood seeks the Singularity and believes Dr. Li holds the key. Mullins agrees in exchange for running his investigation through Brentwood's extraordinary computer resources.
The quest leads him on an unexpected path from Naval Intelligence and the Oval Office to a secret research lab in the North Carolina mountains. No one can be trusted-the race for the Singularity is a global winner-takes-all contest.
Yet, terrifyingly, a machine with capacity exceeding human intelligence can outstrip all controls while possessing no moral or ethical brakes. As the AI stakeholders go all out, Mullins must face his own singularity-the point of no return-when not just he but his family and Dr. Li's will become casualties in what amounts to war.
When private detective Sam Blackman agrees to help his partner and lover, Nakayla Robertson, conduct a fundraiser for orphaned twins, he does so to ease his conscience. The boys' parents were killed in a courtroom shootout where Sam was the key witness against the twins' father. The charity event, a nighttime ghost tour of the legendary haunted sites of Asheville, North Carolina, seems harmless enough. Sam only has to tell the story of a grief-stricken woman who hanged herself from an old, arched stone bridge. "Helen, come forth," he cries. Sam and his tourgoers expect the actress playing Helen's ghost to walk toward them from the bridge's dark recesses. Instead, her body tumbles from overhead and dangles at the end of a noose. Someone has reenacted the legend with deadly authenticity.
When a second murder mimics another old ghost tale, the police fear a macabre serial killer is on the prowl. But the case isn't Sam's to solve. Then, a tidal wave of evidence begins to point to one man-Sam's friend, defense attorney Hewitt Donaldson. Sam and Nakayla, firmly believing in Donaldson's innocence, must not only prove it but halt a murderer seemingly bent on retribution. Does the killer's motivation rise from the present, or is Team Donaldson dealing with some specter from the past?
"In de Castrique's lively fifth Sam Blackman mystery...the complex relationship between Sam, a man dedicated to bringing criminals to justice, and Hewitt, a lawyer often willing to bend the law to save his clients from jail, will keep readers turning the pages."-Publishers Weekly
When Cherokee burial remains are unearthed on the site of a local cemetery’s expansion, Barry Clayton, part-time deputy and full-time undertaker, finds his dual occupations colliding. Then, during the interment of the wife of one of Gainesboro’s most prominent citizens, Cherokee activist Jimmy Panther leads a protest. Words and fists fly.
When Panther turns up executed on the grave of the deceased woman, Barry is forced to confront her family as the chief suspects. But the case lurches in a new direction with the arrival of Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkin’s army pal, Boston detective Kevin Malone. Malone is on the trail of a Boston hit man who arrived at the Cherokee reservation only days before the murder. Malone is convinced his quarry is the man who pulled the trigger. But who paid him? And why?
The investigation draws Barry onto the reservation where Jimmy Panther’s efforts to preserve Cherokee traditions threatened the development of a new casino, a casino bringing millions of dollars of construction and substantial yearly payouts to every member of the tribe. With the unlikely team of his childhood nemesis Archie Donovan and his elderly Uncle Wayne, Barry goes undercover in an effort to draw out the truth. But the stakes are higher than he realized—and the life of a Cherokee boy becomes the wager. Barry must play his cards very carefully in his riskiest undertaking yet.
“For readers who enjoy mysteries with a bit more depth, de Castrique offers original plots, strikingly human characters, and a heartwarming portrait of American culture. His writing is to be savored.”—Library Journal, praise for the author
In Asheville, North Carolina, the Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency faces a disturbing reality: no clients. Sam Blackman finds inactivity intolerable, so when partner Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt on the site of a historic freed-slave commune called the Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam reluctantly agrees. When he stumbles across a skeleton, his adventure mushrooms into a case of murder. But it isn’t his case—he has no client—and the local authorities tell him to butt out.
Then Marsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a burglary at her mother’s home. In 1967 someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marsha’s mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. Marsha’s visit is no coincidence: the photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Sam’s being played, but why?
When Marsha’s eighty-five-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, Sam has his answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang—Lucille’s lover and Marsha’s white father—who disappeared in 1967? Jimmy’s brother says no; Jimmy left to seek his fortune after Lucille rejected his marriage proposal. But others stood to gain from Jimmy’s disappearance.
A veil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret, and no one—not even Sam—is safe from the deadly consequences.
“Known for his effortless storytelling, de Castrique once again delivers a compelling tale blending fact and fiction, this one involving racial tension, the aftermath of war, and the authentication of manuscripts.”—Library Journal (starred review) on Blackman’s Coffin
Russell Mullins has left intelligence work. When his wife died of cancer, Rusty quit the Secret Service to repurpose his life. He joins a private protection company in Washington, DC, and is assigned to guard Paul Luguire, a Federal Reserve executive and chief liaison with the US Treasury. Mullins and Luguire form a strong friendship. So when a police detective calls in the middle of the night with word of Luguire's suicide, Mullins doesn't buy it.
His doubts are reinforced by Amanda Church, a former Secret Service colleague now in the Federal Reserve's cybersecurity unit. She uncovered a suspicious financial transaction initiated by Luguire only days before his death. He authorized the transfer of unrequested funds from the Federal Reserve to a regional bank. Even stranger, after Luguire's suicide, Amanda finds the transaction has been erased from Federal Reserve records; the regional bank now shows the money wired from an offshore account in the name of Russell Mullins. Someone is setting Rusty up. And when the bank president is murdered, Mullins rockets to the top of the suspect list.
In an age of Wall Street meltdowns and a downgraded US credit rating, the secretive Federal Reserve is compromised. Mullins and Church don't know whom to trust. Evidence points to an external terrorist attack, but the web of deceit appears woven from within and threatens to destroy the heart of America's financial system.
Twelve targets are known. The clock is ticking. What, or who, is the thirteenth?
"[A] taut political thriller...Plenty of action, convincing color, and sympathetic bit players-particularly a gutsy female hostage-help maintain reader interest."-Publishers Weekly
When Barry Clayton's father developed Alzheimer's disease, Barry gave up his career in law enforcement to run the family's funeral home in the North Carolina mountain town of Gainesboro, where he is known as Buryin' Barry. But even a small town in the Appalachians is not immune to crime. At a summer street dance, Barry's friend Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins is shot at by an old man distraught over the death of his wife. The hospitalized Tommy Lee appoints Barry as the deputy in charge of the investigation, to the dismay of Deputy Reece Hutchins.
Who was the old man stalking? Why was a young woman, who was also wounded at the scene, traveling with the intended victim? What at first appears to be a case of a mentally unstable summer tourist develops into a case in which someone is preying on senior citizens. Barry discovers a tangled web of deceit stretching from western North Carolina to the Florida coast.
Barry realizes that Deputy Hutchins is undercutting his investigation. And as potential witnesses and informants begin to die under mysterious circumstances, Barry confronts a conspiracy that runs so deep that he no longer knows whom to trust. One false step, one betrayal, would make this case Buryin' Barry's final undertaking.
"For readers who enjoy mysteries with a bit more depth, de Castrique offers original plots, strikingly human characters, and a heartwarming portrait of American culture. His writing is to be savored."-Library Journal (starred review)
It was only a simple, routine assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson: follow a history professor, who is suing a spinal surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in physical activities that undercut her claim.
When the professor, Janice Wainwright, visits Connemara, the home of the poet Carl Sandburg, in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and climbs the arduous trail to the top of Glassy Mountain, Sam believes he has the evidence he needs to wrap up the case—until he finds the woman semiconscious and bleeding on the mountain's granite outcrop. Her final words were "It's the Sandburg verses. The Sandburg verses."
As the first person to discover the dying woman, Sam becomes the prime suspect. Now the case is personal. An autopsy reveals painkillers in her blood and solid proof of the surgeon's errors, and Sam is left with haunting questions: Why did this suffering woman endure the climb to the mountaintop? Did she stumble and fall or did someone cause her death?
Then a break-in at the Wainwright farmhouse and the theft of Sandburg volumes convince Sam that someone is seeking information worth killing for. But what did Pulitzer Prize winner Sandburg have in his literary collection that could lead to multiple murders? And who will be targeted next?Sam and Nakayla must navigate a convoluted trail of historical facts and mountain legends to arrive at the truth—a truth that Carl Sandburg never knew he possessed—and a treasure to be had for a song.
Praise for Mark de Castrique's Blackman's Coffin: "Known for his effortless storytelling, de Castrique once again delivers a compelling tale blending fact and fiction, this one involving racial tension, the aftermath of war, and the authentication of manuscripts."—Library Journal (starred review)
He knows the secret, she knows the truth…
"The list. You're on the list. God's chosen Gene."
When children's hospital volunteer and high school student Gene Adamson hears the words of the dying man, the gunman who used him as a shield after murdering a prominent geneticist, Gene thinks the man delirious. But then the bodies of killer and victim disappear from the morgue, and a ten-year-old girl desperately needing a heart transplant is mysteriously bumped from her number-one spot on the organ-recipient list. The list. What is the list? Gene, together with Jeanne Everston, the beautiful daughter of the murdered geneticist, appears to have stumbled onto a medical conspiracy so deadly the very knowledge of its existence marks them for death.
As a child's life hangs in the balance, Gene believes he's discovered the answer. He thinks he's cracked the conspiracy wide open. He is so wrong.
"The suspense builds to a brilliant conclusion…This work is storytelling at its best, totally drawing you into every event happening…A great read, I give it a high recommendation."-Midwest Book Review
A locked-room young adult whodunit in the classic tradition of Sherlock Holmes.
June 1860. A new locomotive christened A Southern Breeze steams across the Carolina countryside carrying seventeen-year-old Jeb Bennett and his twin sister, Rachel Leigh, to the exhilarating promise of a summer in Charleston.
While storm clouds gather over the landscape, fiercer storms rage inside the passenger cars. The tensions between North and South rapidly escalate until one traveler's journey abruptly and brutally ends. Who is the murderer? Was the victim the real target? Amid swirling suspicions and deceptive intrigue, Jeb and Rachel Leigh join Pinkerton detective Jonathan Ward in a race to unmask a killer.
But murder isn't the only evil Jeb must confront. As motives and suspects abound, Jeb learns what it means to place a price on a human life, not only as a victim of murder but also as property to be traded and sold.
The final showdown means hard choices, a test of loyalties, and a face-to-face encounter with death on A Southern Breeze.
Praise for A Conspiracy of Genes: 'The suspense builds to a brilliant conclusion'This work is storytelling at its best, totally drawing you into every event happening'A great read, I give it a high recommendation.''Midwest Book Review
You want to borrow a casket?
Funeral director and part-time sheriff Barry Clayton finds United States Junior Chamber member Archie Donovan's request absurd until he learns the casket will be the centerpiece of the Jaycees' haunted house, a charity event with all proceeds going to the children's hospital.
But when the president of the Jaycees is murdered in the casket on Halloween, the national press descends upon Gainesboro to cover the bizarre crime.'Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins assigns Barry to be the lead investigator of a case that presents no motive and no suspects.'Then someone fires a shot at Archie Donovan, and Barry wonders whether the victim in the casket had even been the intended target.
Barry finds his police work and personal life on a collision course as his ex-wife Rachel comes to town with high hopes of using the story to launch her TV-network career.'She begins prying into the lives of Gainesboro's most distinguished citizens and creates a backlash that leaves another body in its wake.'Old wounds are ripped open, family rifts exposed, and a criminal enterprise revealed that cuts to the heart of the community.
Barry Clayton must follow a trail of clues as winding as a forest path.'The unexpected destination: a mountainside of Christmas trees.'Somewhere behind these symbols of peace and goodwill lurks a killer.'Unmasking him will be a fatal undertaking.
A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery
Praise for Mark de Castrique: 'His writing is to be savored.''Library Journal on Final Undertaking (starred review)
Former chief warrant officer and amputee Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson, are opening a detective agency. They have high hopes that the thriving Mountain Region' will provide a steady stream of cases.
Their first client, a quirky elderly woman in a retirement community, makes a strange request: she wants Sam to right a wrong she committed over seventy years ago. Her victim? F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her crime? Stealing a manuscript when Fitzgerald resided in the stately Grove Park Inn. Sam's task seems simple enough: retrieve the woman's lockbox and deliver the manuscript to Fitzgerald's heirs.
Sam Blackman is an angry man. A Chief Warrant Officer in the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the U.S. military, he lost a leg in Iraq, and has been outspoken in his criticism of his medical treatment. Then, ex-marine and fellow amputee Tikima Robertson walks into his hospital room and hints that she has an opportunity for Sam to use his investigative skills'if he can stop feeling sorry for himself. But before she can return, Tikima is murdered, her body found floating in the river.A journal found in Tikima's apartment, dated to 1919 and written by a twelve-year-old boy, reveals a ninety-year-old crime that foreshadows Tikima's death'the murder of her great-great-grandfather, Elijah, whose body was also found in the French Broad River. Sam must delve into Asheville's rich history to uncover the murderous truth.
