Sidewinder


Book Description

In the mid-1950s a small group of overworked, underpaid scientists and engineers on a remote base in the Mojave Desert developed a weapon no one had asked for but everyone in the weapons industry desired. This is the story of how that unorthodox team, led by visionary Bill McLean, overcame U.S. Navy bureaucracy and other more heavily funded projects to develop the world’s best air-to-air missile. Author Ron Westrum examines that special time and place—when the old American work ethic and “can do” spirit were a vital part of U.S. weapons development—to discover how this dedicated team was able to create a simple and inexpensive missile. Today, many decades after its invention, the Sidewinder missile is still considered one of the best that America has to offer. In a time of billion-dollar weapons development contracts, astronomical cost overruns, and defense acquisitions scandals, this revealing, highly readable tale about one of the most successful weapons in history should be of interest to anyone concerned with national security."=




Shock & Awe


Book Description

After barely surviving a shootout in New Orleans, Sidewinder medic Kelly Abbott has to suffer through a month of recovery before he can return home to Colorado. He's not surprised when fellow Sidewinder Nick O'Flaherty stays with him in New Orleans. Nor is he surprised when Nick travels home with him to help him get back on his feet — after all, years on the same Marine Force Recon team bonded the men in ways that only bleeding for a brother can. He's very surprised, though, when Nick humors his moment of curiosity and kisses him. Nick knows all of Kelly's quirks and caprices, so the kiss was a low-risk move on his part...or so he thought. But what should've been a simple moment unleashes a flood of confusing emotions and urges that neither man is prepared to address. Now, Kelly and Nick must figure out what they mean to each other — friends and brothers in arms, or something even deeper? — before the past can come back to ruin their tenuous future.




Sidewinder


Book Description

A small snake glides sideways across the hot desert sand. As it moves, it makes an S shape with its body. Then the sidewinder snake buries itself under the sand. There, with only its head poking out, it waits for prey. Welcome to life in the desert! Young readers will learn all about the desert environment where the sidewinder lives, as well as its physical characteristics, what it eats, and how it survives in its hot, dry home. Colorful photos and diagrams, clear text, age-appropriate activities, and critical-thinking questions will keep young readers turning the pages as they take a closer look at this intriguing desert dweller.




Master Assassins


Book Description

2018 BookNest Fantasy Awards Finalist for Best Novel “This book has everything I love: Clean, crisp worldbuilding. Characters that live and breathe. A story that teases and surprises me. I like Master Assassins so much I wish I'd written it, but deep down, I know I couldn't have written it this well.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Patrick Rothfuss Two village boys mistaken for assassins become the decisive figures in the battle for a continent in the thrilling new desert-based epic fantasy by the author of The Red Wolf Conspiracy. Kandri Hinjuman was never meant to be a soldier. His brother Mektu was never meant for this world. Rivals since childhood, they are drafted into a horrific war led by a madwoman-Prophet, and survive each day only by hiding their disbelief. Kandri is good at blending in, but Mektu is hopeless: impulsive, erratic—and certain that a demon is stalking him. Is this madness or a second sense? Either way, Kandri knows that Mektu’s antics will land them both in early graves. But all bets are off when the brothers’ simmering feud explodes into violence, and holy blood is spilled. Kandri and Mektu are taken for contract killers and must flee for their lives—to the one place where they can hope to disappear: the sprawling desert known as the Land that Eats Men. In this eerie wilderness, the terrain is as deadly as the monsters, ghouls, and traffickers in human flesh. Here the brothers find strange allies: an aging warlord, a desert nomad searching for her family, a lethal child-soldier still in her teens. They also find themselves in possession of a secret that could bring peace to the continent of Urrath. Or unthinkable carnage. On their heels are the Prophet’s death squads. Ahead lie warring armies, sandstorms, evil spirits and the deeper evil of human greed. But hope beckons as well—if the “Master Assassins” can expose the lie that has made them the world’s most wanted men.




Cross & Crown


Book Description

When Nick O'Flaherty arrives at the scene of a double homicide to find he has a witness to the crime, he thinks it's his lucky day. But when he realizes his witness is suffering from amnesia and can't even remember his own name, Nick wishes he'd gone with his gut and put in for vacation time. Then Nick's boyfriend and former Recon teammate, Kelly Abbott, joins him in Boston, and Nick finds his hands a little too full as the case and his personal life collide. The witness he's dubbed "JD" is being tailed by Julian Cross, a retired CIA hitman. To complicate matters further, JD forms an attachment to Nick that Nick struggles not to respond to as they search for the key to JD's identity. Trying to determine whether JD is friend or foe as they investigate the crime puts them on the trail of a much older mystery. When multiple attempts are made on their lives, Nick is forced to turn to old enemies and new allies to solve a centuries-old crime before he and Kelly get added to the history books.




Part & Parcel


Book Description

Nick O'Flaherty and Kelly Abbott had their happy ending in sight when a friend’s call for help almost ended with them losing it to the blade of a knife. Now, in the aftermath of near-disaster, both men are trying to heal and move on. Moving on together, though, is harder than either of them realized it would be. Kelly struggles with simply being a lover instead of the Doc, while Nick is mired in his recovery. The distance between them inches along in stilted silence. Desperately seeking solace, Nick finally gathers the courage to sort through the possessions his dear friend and fellow Sidewinder teammate Elias Sanchez left him when he died. Instead of comforting memories, Nick and Kelly find a stack of letters and strict instructions from Eli that prompt them to send out a call for assistance. With Eli’s letters in hand, Sidewinder sets out on one last mission together, seeking peace and absolution from beyond the grave—and from each other. **See this title's page on RiptidePublishing.com for content warnings.**




Sidewinder


Book Description




The Butcher of Bear Creek


Book Description

There are Old West heroes of courage and conviction—and then there are the Sidewinders. Bullets fly in this rowdy adventure from the bestselling authors. William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone bring back those beloved, bumbling cowboys, Bo Creel and Scratch Morton. As usual, despite their best efforts, deep trouble has a way of tracking them down . . . Knocking on Trouble’s Door There’s nothing like family. At least that’s what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo’s family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he’s in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman. With Bear Creek in an uproar, a man with Bo Creel’s face and body is about to kill again. And the worst is still hovering on the horizon: a family secret that could turn Bo’s hair bone-white. Praise for the novels of William W. Johnstone “[A] rousing, two-fisted saga of the growing American frontier.”—Publishers Weekly on Eyes of Eagles “There’s plenty of gunplay and fast-paced action.”—Curled Up with a Good Book on Dead Before Sundown




Mankiller, Colorado


Book Description

Famed for The Last Gunfighter and Mountain Man sagas, master storyteller William W. Johnston joins forces with J.A. Johnstone to let loose a pair of the most unforgettable, trouble-prone, hard-fighting cowboys the West has ever known--who are about to step in the biggest hornet's nest in Colorado Territory. . . A Good Name--For A Very Bad Town Bo Creel and Scratch Morton have a lot of experience with the law: they've been breaking it most of their lives. But now the drifters are down to their last dime, and they accept the best job they can get in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien. Their tin stars are mighty pretty. And they start to take their new job seriously--until they're standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's cowering citizens--with the killers outnumbering the cowerers. The only hope for a besieged town, Bo and Scratch now have a chance to become real heroes--that is, if they don't get their heads blown off the minute they stick their snoots out of the door.




Sidewinders


Book Description

Cowboys Scratch Morton and Bo Creel get a job transporting three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Texas for trial. The most dangerous criminal turns out to be a beautiful woman and soon the journey turns into a race for buried treasure, a shootout, and much more than these cowboys bargained for.