Books in the St. Kilda Consulting series

The latest masterwork from one of the leading writers of suspense . . . 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.The Wrong HostageOrphaned 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 polarized or 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 and politics of government as a kidnap specialist for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based global business that concentrates on the shadow world where governments can't go. He is good at his work -- intelligent, confident, ruthless. Until a friend dies trying to kill him. Now Faroe is out of the business. Retired. He's through trying to save a world that doesn't want to be saved. Then Grace comes to him, past and present collide, 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.

Features the remarkable Donovan family.

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 eventsincluding a mysterious fire that kills her great-aunt and a furor in the Western art world raised by a dozen Breck family paintingsculminates 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 territoryamong 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. . . .

On what at first appears to be an ordinary day, everything changes for private banker Kayla Shaw when she barely escapes a brutal kidnapping attempt and finds herself accused of a shocking crime: the illegal laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars. Damned by lies and false "e;evidence,"e; she is trapped with no place to run.After five agonizing years, landscape painter Rand McCree has finally been offered what he desires most: the name of his twin brother's murderer. Hungry for vengeance, he accepts a job that will place him in the killer's orbit . . . and tantalizingly close to Kayla Shaw. The cold-blooded international criminal responsible for Rand's brother's death has targeted Kayla as his next victimand only Rand can stop him from killing again.Suspicious of each other, needing each other, 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. . . .

Elizabeth Lowell has long set a standard of excellence for thrillers that never stint on either romance or suspense.BookPageNew York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell cuts a razor-sharp new edge in romantic suspense with Death Echo, a thrilling tale of passion, danger, and international intrigue. A breakneck-paced novel that unites a beautiful former CIA agent with a tough and haunted ex-Special Forces operative, Death Echo is a top-rank thriller in the vein of Iris Johansen, Tami Hoag, and Lisa Gardnerand a dazzling example of the superior storytelling that inspired author Jayne Ann Krentz to declare, Ill buy anything with Elizabeth Lowells name on it.