Clyde Barr returns in “one of the best thrillers of the year” (The Washington Times) that “promises intense, edge-of-the-seat excitement to anyone who picks it up” (Nelson DeMille).

Clyde Barr, the drifter with lethal skills, is alone again, wandering the highways of the American West in search of something to believe in. As summer turns to autumn, he trades his car for a horse and heads for the mountains, planning to clear his head and regain his edge with some hunting. But when he runs across an elderly sick man–a Ute Indian from a nearby reservation–Clyde’s dream of solitude is quickly dashed.

On the reservation, Clyde finds the old man’s daughter, Lawana, as well as a group of menacing bikers called the Reapers running wild in the economically depressed, half-abandoned village. Gripped by the desire to do good in a bleak world, Clyde offers to stay on Lawana’s ranch to help out until her father is released from the hospital. He controls himself around the bikers, even when he sees them harass a few Native American women–but when the Reapers attack a local boy Clyde has to do something. As tensions rise between the locals and the Reapers, Clyde’s efforts to protect the reservation become a fight for his and Lawana’s lives. And then the stakes ratchet up even more.

A Promise to Kill is the edge-of-the-seat sequel to Nothing Short of Dying that “readers will have a hard time putting…down” (Publishers Weekly).

In the tradition of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and featuring a lethal, ex-mercenary drifter who is most comfortable surviving in the wilderness and who puts his expertise to work racing against the clock to save his sister from a murderous meth kingpin, this “relentless thrill ride hurtles the reader into dark and interesting places” (Robert Ferrigno, New York Times bestselling author).

Sixteen years. That’s how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado’s thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he’s back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and, most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him.

By the light of a flickering campfire, Clyde receives a frantic phone call from his sister Jen. No sooner has she pleaded with him to come rescue her that the line goes dead. Clyde doesn’t know how much time he has, or where Jen is located, or why she needs rescuing. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her.

Joining Clyde in his against-all-odds quest is a young woman named Allie whose motivations for running this gauntlet are fascinatingly complex. As the duo races against the clock, it’s Allie who gets Clyde to see what he has become and what he can still be.

Vivid with the hues and scents of Colorado’s backcountry, Nothing Short of Dying is, above all, “nothing short of brilliant. It grabs you from page one and simply doesn’t let go” (Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector).