St. Kilda Consulting

Carolina May-Carly to her friends-never knew her biological family. Ironic, considering she is a successful family historian. Recently hired by the eccentric aunt of New Mexico's multimillionaire Governor Quintrell, the future looks bright. Until things start going wrong-and Carly begins to learn the true meaning of fear. Daniel Duran made a career out of fighting for other people's beliefs-principles they'd given their lives for. But now he wants some meaning of his own. Yearning for a reason to live, he's come back to Taos, the town where he grew up. Soon, the paths of Carly and Daniel cross. While Carly's investigation into the Quntrell family amuses Dan, it also chills him, because he knows a dark truth Carly doesn't: in New Mexico, tracing bloodlines is a deadly sport …

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell returns with a chilling tale of the law gone wrong and a kidnapping that threatens more than one life. Orphaned at thirteen, Grace Silva clawed her way out of poverty and violence to become one of the most respected judges on the federal bench. Grace believes in the rule of law -- lives it, breathes it. She has always been buttoned up and buttoned down. Except once. Joe Faroe has learned that laws are made by politicians, and politicians are all too human. He believes in the innocents, the ones getting ground up by governments that are too corrupt to protect their own citizens. He's been through the political meat grinder himself. It cost him his career, his freedom, and the woman who still haunts him. Since then Faroe has worked outside the rules as a kidnap specialist for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based global business that concentrates on the shadow world. He is good at his work -- intelligent, confident, ruthless. Until a friend dies trying to kill him. Now Faroe is out of the business. Then Grace comes to him and Faroe finds himself sucked back into the shadows, tracking a violent killer who holds the life of Grace's son in his bloody hands.

Kayla Shaw is a smart and capable private banker in Arizona. Rand McCree is a haunted man painting landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, burning with a need for answers. They are two strangers with nothing in common-until their lives entwine . . . and explode. Everything changes for Kayla as she barely escapes a kidnapping attempt and finds herself accused of a shocking crime: the illegal laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars. Damned by lies and false "evidence," she is trapped. After five agonizing years, Rand has finally been offered the name of his twin brother's murderer. Hungry for vengeance, he accepts a job with St. Kilda Consulting that will place him in the killer's orbit . . . and tantalizingly close to Kayla Shaw, who has been targeted as the killer's next victim. Since she can't turn to the police, who believe she's guilty as sin, she must place her life in Rand McCree's hands. Suspicious of one another, needing one another, they are two against the world as the violence of the past erupts in the present. And now innocence alone will not be enough to keep Kayla Shaw alive . . .

Jill Breck was just doing her job as a river guide when she saved the life of Lane Faroe, son of two of St. Kilda Consulting's premier operators. But when a string of ominous events-including a mysterious fire that kills her great-aunt and a furor in the Western art world raised by a dozen Breck family paintings-culminates in a threat to her life, Jill reluctantly calls in a favor. Zach Balfour works part-time as a consultant for St. Kilda. His expertise is gathering and analyzing information from unlikely and often dangerous sources. Though he's got the skills to be a highly effective bodyguard, being a bullet catcher isn't his preferred way to spend time. Protecting Jill will take him into familiar territory-among a strange, savagely competitive bunch of collectors who'll do anything to stay at the top. But Jill is in deeper waters than she's ever known; as she soon discovers, the perils of running wild rivers are tame compared with the hidden dangers in the high-stakes game of art collecting. From the cozy rooms of the Breck homestead cabin to the cold multimillion-dollar galleries of the Western art circuit, Zach and Jill must race against time to unmask a ruthless killer hidden in a blue smoke of money, threats, lies, and death. . . .

When she joined St. Kilda's, the elite security consulting firm, Emma Cross thought she'd left behind the blood, the guilt, and the Tribal Wars that defined her life at the CIA. Yet trading spying for investigating yacht thefts didn't alleviate the danger. Now, the same good instincts that got her into trouble at the agency might be the one thing that will help her survive her latest case. St. Kilda and Emma are tracking a yacht named Blackbird. Emma knows the boat's intended cargo is lethal. What she needs to find out is whether it's biological, chemical, or fissionable. And she's only got seven days to uncover the truth . . . or a major American city will be lost. Fortunately, she's working with a new partner as menacing and distrustful as the worst enemy she's ever faced-Mackenzie Durand. But Emma and Mac aren't the only eyes watching Blackbird. Taras Demidov, an expert in extortion and execution in the pay of oligarchs running the Former Soviet Union, is also waiting in the shadows, determined to intercept a fearsomely powerful arms dealer with the money, weaponry, and connections to alter the geopolitical balance.