Ben Onwukwe

One of the most formidable fighters in the world, ex-SAS warrior and former private security consultant Major Hector Cross has survived explosive tangles with depraved enemies - warlords, pirates, and arms dealers - from the Middle East to the heart of Africa. Now, Cross must take the law into his own hands once again to stop a vengeful old enemy who has resurfaced - and hunt down a deadly new nemesis in pursuit of global domination.

"England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness-a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When a jaded female detective is recruited to escort them...

"More than fifty years ago, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Peter Lovesey published a short story in an anthology. That short story caught the eye of the great Ruth Rendell, whose praise ignited Lovesey's lifelong passion for short form crime fiction. On the occasion of his hundredth short story, Peter Lovesey has assembled this devilishly clever collection, fifteen yarns of mystery, melancholy, and mischief, inhabiting such deadly settings...