PHILIP JOSE FARMER – VENUS ON THE HALF SHELF

Everybody knows that governments engage in activities that are top secret and not always carried out by-the-book. They are knows as 'black ops'. But perhaps less well known is that there is a level beyond this, when the very existence of the state is threatened and the situation needs fixing instantly and utterly secretly and probably violently. Sometimes, it's necessary to go 'full black'. And when the USA is in that position, the man most likely to lead the mission is former Navy SEAL Scot Harvath. FULL BLACK finds Harvath in Sweden, executing in an audacious plan to prevent a massive attack on the Unites States by leading a team to capture a suspected terrorist and infiltrate his cell with a double agent. At the same time, Larry Solomon, one of the most famous film producers in Hollywood, is attacked in his home by a special forces-style group of assassins and only escapes with the help of his friend and former Delta Force operative Luke Ralston. In making a documentary film, Solomon has unknowingly exposed one of the world's wealthiest and highly connected power-brokers as a man determined to plunge the West into deadly chaos. Now, both Solomon and Ralston are living on borrowed time. As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusions, Harvath will be left with only one means to save his country. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go FULL BLACK.

Darina is in denial. Even after all she's been through, the Beautiful Dead can't be real. They must be a figment of her grief-stricken imagination. But visions of Phoenix and Hunter prove otherwise and soon she's drawn back to Foxton, to the barn, to Phoenix - where they have, what may just be, their final reunion. It's the moment they've been dreading - time to solve Phoenix's mystery. Everything has been building to this but Darina knows that revealing the true circumstances of Phoenix's death will lead to their final parting. With this impossible mixture of emotions, Darina begins to unscramble the facts, but she's up against mounting obstacles: the distraction of Hunter's personal mystery, Phoenix's returning father, threats of gang violence and conspiracies to blur and block the truth. With time pressure mounting and the risk of Phoenix being sent back into unending limbo, Darina puts herself in danger, and so the mystery of the Beautiful Dead builds into a heart-breaking climax ...

Homeland Security Secretary Catherine Blaine receives a frightening communication from a hacker identified only by the pseudonym Janus. The message is the latest in a series correctly predicting natural disasters around the world—disasters that, Janus claims, were manufactured, not natural at all. And, according to the email, unless the United States does as Janus instructs, another disaster is coming—a Category 5 hurricane that will hit the Eastern Seaboard and destroy the lives of tens of millions of people. Unaware of the crisis in Washington, investigative journalist Jon Mallory stumbles on a list of seven prominent scientists who have been murdered over the past dozen years. When the person who gave him the list disappears herself, Jon realizes he has unwittingly become part of a deadly chain of events and contacts his brother, private intelligence contractor Charles, for help. Meanwhile, Catherine Blaine has also come to Charles for help tracking down the hacker Janus and uncovering the frightening new weather technology that threatens the world.