Charles Williams

A son searches for the men who killed his mysterious father Even at sixty-six, Gunnar Romstead was a tough old salt. It took several men to bring him down, and even after they'd bound his feet and hands he was still a threat. But finally the man who'd survived waterfront brawls, World War II, and countless stormy nights at sea died on his knees-shot through the back of the head.   Looking for answers, his son Eric comes to the barren California town...

An engineer battles a small town to see his sister released from prison It takes Reno three days to get from Peru to the Gulf Coast, and when he gets to Waynesport he has only one stop to make: the city jail, where his sister is being held on a murder rap. The way Vickie tells it, she saw her husband having a drink with another woman, they quarreled, and she went to the bathroom. When she came out, he was shot through the back of the skull. The police...

Her husband in jail, a desperate young woman takes refuge among sharecroppers. Once, Cass Neely's farm stretched across the entire valley, but decades of bad decisions and rotten luck have forced him to sell off nearly every inch. He and his son farm the meager remains of a once-great property, living in a grim downward spiral - until Cass's daughter-in-law, Joy, moves in. She's by far the most beautiful thing this county has ever seen, but she's...

Lead or silver; a bribe or a bullet. Those are the choices in a world of crime, drugs, corrupt politicians, thwarted ambitions, revenge and rivalries. It's no place for a cop who just wants to do his job and keep his hands clean. But when his boss hands him a murder case with a warning that it isn't an ordinary murder, his life changes. He finds himself in the middle of a deadly rivalry between heavyweight egos, one touched with greed and madness,...

Raised at the racetrack, a boy comes to live on a Texas farm Billy doesn't know how to read a book, but give him a racing form and he can tell you everything about a pony that you'd ever want to know. He and his father live on the road, traveling from Aqueduct to Hialeah and back again, until an overzealous Welfare lady demands they settle somewhere more wholesome than the track. Not knowing anyplace wholesome, Billy's father takes him to Texas instead,...

A small town is doomed by jealousy, greed, and a shared love of hunting In the backwoods town of Carthage, there isn't much for the leading citizens to do but drink, sleep, and shoot. John Warren is preparing for an early morning duck hunt when he hears two shotgun blasts- only later does he learn they were the sound of Dan Roberts's death. Although it appears the handsome young man killed himself, Warren and the police are smart enough to realize...

When a gringo ex-pat foolishly steps in to defend an Indian woman from an obsessed drug trafficker, he finds a still living world of ancient myths. With the drug trafficker's henchmen on their trail, they flee to her village in the mountains where an old tradition is about to be celebrated with ritual combat. When the protection of villagers and friends isn't enough, violence saves their lives, fulfilling the ancient myths, and preserving the old...

A sailor stranded in the Pacific Ocean finds there are a million ways to die His life in pieces, Harry Goddard buys a thirty-two-foot sloop and sets out to sail the Pacific. He is a thousand miles from anywhere when his craft strikes an unseen object, and begins taking water. For all his desperate efforts, he cannot save her, and Harry is forced into his life raft, to drift without food, water, or shelter from the sun. He is near death when the Leander...

For Madox, a dull town, a beautiful woman, and an easy bank heist spell doom In a town so small that Main Street is only three blocks long, there isn't a lot to do-other than work, ogle women, and think about fast ways to get rich. After a year of aimless wandering, Madox has landed here, nearly broke and with no prospects but a dead-end job selling cars to yokels. Until one afternoon a fire at the burger joint draws the attention of everyone in town-including...

Stranded in a small town, a stranger falls for a suspected murderess Bored, divorced, and unemployed, Chatham is on his way to the Gulf of Mexico when he passes through a small town by the river. It's a miserable little burg-four stoplights and not much else-and he's almost escaped it when a drunk's car darts out in front of him, causing a nasty fender-bender. The thought of three days waiting for his clunker to get fixed is a grim one, but though...