David Corbett

Seven stories of desperation and death from a master of crime fiction Sterling Associates recruited Satcher in the killing fields of Iraq. A marine who learned the brutalities and frustrations of war in Fallujah, Satcher was ideal for Sterling, a shadowy corporation whose business is to kill for America when the CIA can't. He comes to Guatemala, the deadliest nation in the Americas, to kidnap a Sinaloan cartel member and turn him against his family....

A saxophonist's murder is only the first shot fired in a citywide war All great blues musicians chase something. Raymond "Strong" Carlisle calls it "the deep sweet"-that perfect note that always seems to sit just out of reach. For decades he has made crowds swing, made women smile, and earned the respect of some of the greats. But as long as he strained for the deep sweet, nothing he did with his baritone sax seemed to matter. Chasing that fantasy...

In El Salvador, a young American faces his troubled pastand a dangerous present Jude McManus has landed on his feet. Following time in the army, he scored work as an executive protection specialist" in El Salvador, where he safeguards a hydrologist for good money and gets to surf during his downtime. But this slice of paradise comes with post-civil-war dangers, and distance won't erase his cruel memories of Chicago. Ten years earlier, his cop father...

Colonel Jack Adams crashes an AV-8B, Harrier in the middle of a North Carolina Bean field. The task of sorting out the cause of his friend's accident falls to Colonel Dan Breakheart, the Second Marine Air Wing's Safety Officer. Within days of the start of his investigation, Breakheart realizes that, not only sabotage was indeed a factor, regarding his friend's death, but that it may be murder as well. Using information Jack's wife provides, Breakheart...

"Just as a compass provides direction for an explorer, so does motivation provide direction for characters in fiction. The 'compass' of character motivation is composed of four points: Lack, Yearning, Resistance, and Desire. In The Compass of Character, you'll learn to deeply consider the key question 'What does my character want?' and learn techniques to answer that question by writing realistic and empathetic characters without falling into formulaic,...