Greg Johle – författare

The Wall fell, but the shadows never left.Gunnar Kross is a ghost in the machine of a reunited Germany. A decade ago, a botched operation in the heart of Prague cost him his career at the BND and the life of the woman he loved. Today, he survives on the fringes of Berlin, working as a security consultant for construction firms and keeping his SIG Sauer SP2022 close. He thought he had buried the ghosts of the Cold War. He was wrong.When his old contact is found murdered in the shadows of the Grunewald forest, a cryptic warning is left behind: LADDER IS UNSTABLE. Kross is pulled back into a world of dead drops, one-time pads, and high-stakes tradecraft. A missing Stasi-era microfilm canister has resurfaced, carrying secrets that were supposed to stay buried in the archives of the DDR. It contains the architecture for the "e;Schläfer-Netz"e;—a sleeper network being reactivated for a terrifying new purpose.At the heart of the conspiracy lies Clause 47.b, a digital backdoor protocol that will codify total surveillance into European law. Behind it is Viktor Draken, an enigmatic figure known as The Curator, who believes the world is a gallery and the citizens are mere exhibits to be managed. To stop him, Kross must form a fractured alliance with Clara Vance, an investigative journalist and digital archaeologist who specializes in following the money Draken's organization has laundered for decades.From the subterranean vaults of the Prague Metro to the rain-slicked heights of a historic clock tower, Kross and Vance navigate a lethal game of vertical warfare. In this world, trust is a ladder—hard to climb, and easily kicked away. As the body count rises and the digital Iron Curtain begins to fall, Kross must confront the "e;Prague Incident"e; that broke him and decide if he's ready to climb one last time.Grounded in gritty technical realism and visceral action, Shoots and Ladders is a pulse-pounding thriller that explores the high cost of historical curation and the lethal intersection of old-world HUMINT and modern surveillance.The clock is ticking. The rungs are slick. And the fall is a long way down.

Some girls will kill for the lead role. Clara is willing to die for the background.Thirteen-year-old Clara Vance has always been invisible. In the loud, chaotic ecosystem of St. Jude's Middle School, she is the girl who never speaks, never acts out, and never gets noticed.Then comes the spring play.Enter Mr. Grotowski—a bitter, failed auteur who treats his middle school drama students like Juilliard candidates. When he casts Clara, he gives her a terrifying mandate: he doesn't want her to act. He wants absolute, Stanislavskian truth. He wants her to erase her humanity entirely.Clara takes the note.What begins as an awkward teenager trying to impress a demanding teacher quickly spirals into a chilling, method-acting descent. Clara stops eating human food, preferring to "e;photosynthesize"e; in the school courtyard. She locks her joints until they swell, mastering the art of perfect, immovable rigidity. She views her terrified parents as "e;lumberjacks"e; out to prune her, and her gossiping classmates as a fungal rot she must violently eradicate to protect the sanctity of the stage.The Heartwood is a pitch-black, psychological thriller about the horrors of artistic obsession and the lengths one girl will go to finally be essential. It is a harrowing journey into madness, ego-death, and the darkest corners of the human mind.And Clara is playing Tree Number 4.

Saving a man's soul is a heavy burden. Subduing his inner beast requires a perfect double-leg takedown.In the mist-choked mountains of West Virginia, the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration on the Ridge offers peace, prayer, and the occasional jar of locally sourced honey. For Father Moses—formerly Michael Gainer, an All-American wrestling powerhouse—it's the quiet life he's always craved. But when the local livestock starts ending up as grisly "e;meth bear"e; snacks, the peace of the monastery is shattered.Sheriff Mills Vance is convinced it's a drug-fueled predator. Dr. Arlo Finch, a "e;woke"e; Bigfoot hunter, is certain it's a marginalized cryptid resisting the patriarchy. But Father Moses knows the truth. The shadow stalking the ridge isn't a bear, and it isn't Bigfoot. It's a werewolf—and it has a very familiar, very human grudge.To protect his flock, Moses must trade his prayer rope for the "e;Hillbilly-Sambo"e; he thought he'd left behind. Under the grueling guidance of Elder Varnava—a former Soviet Olympic coach who treats spiritual warfare like a high-intensity wrestling camp—Moses begins a training regimen that involves wrestling literal black bears to find his spiritual center of gravity.The "e;Main Event"e; is coming: a high-stakes, technical grappling match for the soul of a small town. In a battle where a silver cross is as important as a cross-face cradle, can a humble monk pin a monster without losing his own humanity?Eastern Orthodox Werewolf Wrastlin' is a masterpiece of "e;serious absurdity,"e; blending Appalachian grit, ancient liturgical tradition, and the technical precision of elite wrestling into a supernatural comedy like no other.

The plan was simple. The target was clear. The mistake was fatal.At 4:15 AM, the rain in Las Vegas doesn't just fall—it punishes. Inside a flickering neon diner at the edge of the desert, six desperate souls are counting their winnings and their casualties. Arthur Vance is dead in the parking lot, and the briefcase on the table isn't filled with the billionaire's extortion material they were promised. Instead, they're staring at a mountain of Cartel cash and a set of encrypted contact lists that serve as a collective death warrant.It was supposed to be the "e;sunset"e; job for Silas, a weary East London cleaner who treats murder with the detached professionalism of a plumber. It was the score to save Janitor Joe's pension and the ticket out of the Vegas tunnels for Jax. But a split-second blunder in the heat of the breach changed everything. They didn't just rob a crooked businessman; they walked directly into a high-level Cartel handover, and they did it while the "e;Whale"e; they were originally sent to ruin watched them escape from the penthouse above.Now, the crew is caught in a lethal pincer movement. On one side is Maxwell Sterling, a predatory billionaire who treats the hunt as a hostile corporate takeover. On the other is Mateo "e;El Santo"e; Vega, a Cartel lieutenant who cannot afford to lose the "e;Chef's"e; briefcase and keep his head.As the sun begins to crawl over the horizon, the witty banter and pop-culture monologues mask a growing, visceral paranoia. Between Bunny's secret agendas, Mickey's obsession with regional burger architecture, and Suitcase Sam's desperate performance as a man who still has a plan, the group is fracturing from the inside.A Bullet for Arthur Vance is a high-octane, non-linear descent into the rain-slicked guts of Las Vegas. Blending the razor-sharp, pop-culture-infused dialogue of Quentin Tarantino with the kinetic, gritty wit of Guy Ritchie, this is a crime thriller where the stakes are as high as the house edge and every character is one bad decision away from a shallow grave.In a city built on luck, theirs just ran out.

Randy Thibodaux was just trying to help. The alligator was in his friend's pool. The drugs were supposed to keep it calm. The car was right there, unlocked, and the marshland was only twelve miles south. None of this was supposed to involve a head-on collision.Destiny Powers was just trying to get to a job interview. She had four copies of her resume, a backup pen, and three weeks of preparation. Her ride never showed. The car across the street was unlocked. She was being practical.When their stolen cars meet on Route 19, something else meets too. Randy and Destiny walk away from the wreckage, sit down at a nearby restaurant, and start talking -- about alligators, about ground beef, about what it means to want a life you can plan around when you've never had one. By the time the sheriff finds them, they've split a grouper sandwich and neither one wants to leave.What follows is a courtship built on scratch-off lottery tickets, borrowed boats, a bucket of KFC chicken, and the kind of dates where getting arrested is always a possibility. Randy's best friend Daryl has schemes -- a backyard gas station, counterfeit cigarettes, a personal injury scam -- and every one of them ends with Sheriff Chad Landry stepping out of his cruiser, cuffs already in hand, wondering what he did to deserve this. Destiny's best friend Shawna watches the whole thing unfold with the exhausted calm of a woman who has seen too much and is impressed by none of it.But when Daryl's latest scheme lands Randy in a holding cell on the night of their date, Destiny sits alone in a parking lot with a bucket of cold chicken and two unanswered calls. And when a misunderstanding convinces her that Randy is not the man she thought he was, she borrows a shotgun and shoots up his truck in the driveway. The truck was already broken. She was thorough.Getting back to Destiny is going to take more than a phone call. It's going to take a fire escape, four stories, a crisis response team, and a best friend in a yellow hibiscus sundress. Because in Palmetto Cove, love isn't quiet. Love is standing on a roof yelling the truth until the right person hears it.Grand Theft Amor is a clean romantic comedy with an absurdist Florida heart, a cast of characters who make terrible decisions for excellent reasons, and a love story that proves two disasters can add up to something worth building.

A dead priest. A ghost in the system. And a debt that was never what it seemed.March 1993. Danny Koh is a twenty-six-year-old NSA analyst pulling late shifts at Fort Meade when his terminal flags a dead man's name. Father Miguel Alvarez, a former Marine who witnessed a CIA-backed massacre in El Salvador, has died of a heart attack in Echo Park. The death certificate moved fast. Too fast. And someone built a tripwire in the system twelve years ago, waiting for this exact moment.In Phoenix, retired CIA field officer Mack McBride gets a phone call from his former handler, Ray Hollis. Ray buried an operation for Mack in Honduras in 1987. The kind of burial that saves careers and creates debts. Now Ray is calling it in. His ask sounds simple: find out who killed a priest and why. Mack flies to LA. He meets Danny at an In-N-Out in Brentwood. The partnership begins.What they uncover is not a murder. It is a machine. DOD black budget money flowing through shell companies in Simi Valley and Manila, buying Soviet-surplus arms, shipping them to Somali warlords under cover of the UN mission, and cycling the profits back as campaign contributions to the congressmen who protect the budget line. An arms-for-influence pipeline running from K Street to Mogadishu, built by someone with CIA contacts and political access. Someone Mack trusts.As Danny follows the money from his basement terminal and Mack works the trail from LA to Washington, a Russian fixer named Yelena Voronova enters with her own agenda. The pipeline's overseas arms broker betrayed her network after the Soviet collapse. She does not want money. She does not want justice. She wants him.Three paths converge on a warehouse near the Mogadishu waterfront in October 1993, as the Battle of Mogadishu erupts around them. The pipeline's window is closing. Everyone is there to collect. And the man who sent Mack to investigate is there to make sure nobody walks out who can testify.Set against the electric backdrop of peak 1993 America, from Starter jackets and Air Jordans to beepers and boomboxes, Dead Man's Flag is a spy thriller about loyalty manufactured as currency, debts designed as leashes, and the bitter discovery that exposing the machine does not stop the world from running exactly the way it always has.

Andy Becket wasn't paying attention. Four years on a carrier flight deck had turned vigilance into reflex and reflex into autopilot, and at 0200 in the Pacific, the deck collected on the debt. Jet wash. Chains still attached. The dark water closed over him before he understood what had happened.He sank. The cold came first, then the pressure, then the silence. Somewhere between consciousness and its absence, something vast stirred in the deep below him. Something that had been waiting for a very long time.The ship that pulled him from the ocean was not built by any civilization Earth has ever known. Ancient, damaged, and fully conscious, it had lain dormant on the ocean floor for millennia, healing slowly, aware that its captain was dead and that no one was coming. Until Andy. Something in his mind registered differently. The ship reached up and chose him.Now bonded to an alien intelligence through the nanites running in his blood, Andy is the captain of a vessel that can cross the solar system in hours, hack any network on Earth without a trace, and fight with weapons no human has ever imagined. The ship calls herself Seven. She calls him Captain. Together they walk the moon, watch Earth from orbit, and stand on the surface of Mars. He shows her what humanity is. She shows him what exists beyond it.But Seven's awakening sent a signal into the dark. The same weapon that shot her down thousands of years ago has registered that signal, and it is coming. It was purpose-built to destroy ships like her. Every tactic she knows, she has already tried. Every maneuver in her ancient, capable military intelligence has already failed against this weapon once before. She has no answer.The weapon was never designed to fight a ship bonded to a human mind. It was never built to anticipate a captain who thinks like a mechanic, acts on instinct, and will do the irrational thing because it is the right thing. Earth is below them, unaware. Andy is the only one standing between the world and something it will never know was coming.He kept his head on a swivel. Just not the way anyone expected.

Before he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson hunted ghosts.Williamsburg, Virginia, 1761. Eighteen-year-old Thomas Jefferson is a brilliant law student content in his world of books, music, and philosophical debate. His mentor, the esteemed George Wythe, has trained him to pursue truth through reason and evidence. But when the servants at the Governor's Palace begin reporting impossible occurrences—whispered voices from empty rooms, mechanical figures moving in the shadows, objects appearing and disappearing without explanation—Jefferson's orderly world collides with something he cannot dismiss: a mystery that defies rational explanation.Most dismiss the reports as superstition. The uneducated seeing patterns where none exist. But Jefferson notices something others miss: the details are too precise, too mechanical. Descriptions of a "e;mechanical ghost"e; that moves with clicking sounds and unnatural precision. The descriptions haunt Jefferson's analytical mind. This isn't hysteria. Someone is engineering these illusions—but why?When Governor Fauquier quietly requests Jefferson's help investigating the disturbances, the young scholar finds himself crossing from the safety of legal precedents into a dangerous game of hidden mechanisms and political conspiracy. Armed with little more than a borrowed telescope, a notebook, and his faith in the scientific method, Jefferson begins to uncover the truth.When Jefferson's rational, methodical approach leads him into a trap that threatens not just his investigation but his life, he must learn a harder lesson than any his books have taught: that uncovering truth requires more than logic. It demands courage, trust in unlikely allies, and the willingness to risk everything for what's right.The Williamsburg Automaton Conspiracy is historical fiction reimagined—a steampunk mystery that combines meticulous period detail with mechanical marvels, political intrigue with paranormal investigation. Perfect for readers who love the intellectual puzzles of Sherlock Holmes, the historical richness of *The Alienist*, and the mechanical ingenuity of steampunk adventure.What really happened in colonial Virginia before the Revolution? What if the brilliant mind that would later pen America's founding document first cut its teeth hunting "e;ghosts"e; and exposing the corruption hiding behind supernatural fears?

"e;You're not my real dad."e;To fourteen-year-old Jason Jones, those five words are a shield. They protect him from the "e;polite siege"e; of his step-father, Keith—a man so patient, so successful, and so "e;perfect"e; that Jason can't help but see every act of kindness as a calculated bribe. To the world, Keith is a hero. To Jason, he's The Warden, presiding over a life of antiseptic boredom and charcoal duvets.Jason is waiting for the Thunder.In a drawer, hidden beneath the weight of his resentment, is a fading Polaroid of his biological father, Stevie. Stevie is everything Keith isn't: a man of leather and smoke, a rider of Harleys, a ghost of a "e;real"e; life that Jason is desperate to reclaim. With a burner phone and a mission, Jason begins to spy on his own family, funneling Keith's secrets to the father he hasn't seen in years.But the "e;Mirror"e; of Jason's memories is starting to crack. The golden flashbacks of his childhood are decaying into sharp, cold details of neglect and sour beer. As the countdown to his fourteenth birthday ticks away, Jason is forced to choose between the man who provides and the monster who promises.In this raw and heart-wrenching tragedy of perception, the truth isn't just a revelation—it's a weapon. And Jason Jones would rather watch the world burn than admit he's fighting for the wrong side.

Julian Thorne was the Shark of Milwaukee's legal world, a man who built a career on ruthlessness and expensive suits. Then came the crash, the public disgrace, and a court-ordered community service sentence that landed him in the coldest place in the city: the North Shore Curling & Broomball rink.He expected to serve his time and walk away. He didn't expect the Majestic Mallards.Led by Artie Higgins, a math teacher with a heart of gold and a team of middle-aged dads who have been written off by everyone—including themselves—the Mallards are the bottom-feeders of the Over-45 City Regional League. They are a ragtag collection of hobbyists: a trash-talking deli owner, a powerhouse stay-at-home dad, and a retired mail carrier who reads the ice with the precision of a master.Julian has the technical brilliance and the cold calculation to win, but he lost the "e;Spirit of Curling"e; decades ago. To lead this team against the high-performance giants of the Northern Blades, he must confront the ghosts of his own athletic failures and decide if he's willing to trade his shark-like instincts for something he hasn't felt in years: hope.On the tilted ice of End 4, the Mallards are fighting for more than a trophy. They are fighting for their lives, their families, and their last chance at relevance in a world that stopped looking their way.In this sincere and gritty sports drama, the roar of the granite is the only truth that matters. One stone at a time, the Majestic Mallards are proving that even in the coldest winters, the underdog can still find a way to soar.

The war for the galaxy won't be won by gods. It will be won by a mechanic.Andy never wanted to be the spark that ignited a galactic rebellion. He just wanted to keep his sentient ship, Seven, flying and protect the small found-family he'd gathered along the way. But the ideals of freedom he shared with a desperate galaxy have taken root, and the resulting fire is threatening to burn the oppressive Stark Empire to the ground.Now, the empire is striking back.With the terrifying might of the Dominion's military closing in, the rebellion is pushed to the brink of annihilation. The Stark Emperor has unveiled his ultimate weapon, a planet-killing fleet capable of wiping out entire worlds to force the outer rim into submission. The stakes are no longer just survival—they are the right to exist free from tyranny.To save the nascent Republic and the woman he loves, Andy must make an impossible choice. The Emperor doesn't just want to crush the rebellion; he wants a mythical prize hidden deep within Earth's own solar system—an ancient artifact of unimaginable power that could grant him twisted divinity.Andy is going to give it to him.But Andy isn't a god, and he isn't a savior. He's a mechanic. And a good mechanic knows that no matter how big the machine, there's always a way to break it.In this explosive, galaxy-spanning conclusion to the Babylon Cycle, alliances will shatter, sacrifices will be made, and a desperate crew will risk everything for a future worth living.

A Navy mechanic who fell off an aircraft carrier into the Pacific Ocean. A sentient warship who pulled him out and made him her captain. And a galaxy that has been waiting four thousand years for them to arrive.Andy Becket and Seven left Earth with a heading and no certainty. What they find at the end of it is extinction. Seven's homeworld is dead, its surface wrapped in permanent storms, its cities scoured to nothing by an empire that solves problems by making them permanent. The civilization that built her is gone. But someone left a trail in the ruins, layered and encrypted and pointing outward, and Andy has never been the kind of man who turns around when the road gets harder.The road leads into the People's Dominion, a decaying empire held together by scarcity, disappearances, and the particular cruelty of a government that has decided what its subjects need and provides less. At its center sits Drevyn XXVIII, the original emperor cloned twenty-eight times across centuries, his image everywhere, his people dying by degrees from the genetic cost of making more of the same man. At its edges, the empire is a ghost running on the memory of what it was.Andy and Seven gather a crew from those edges. Oren, a former imperial official turned smuggler who reads rooms faster than most people register he's entered them. Alpheus, a wandering preacher who has spent his life believing in a prophecy no one took seriously, and who sees Seven and stops needing to believe because now he knows. Lira, a young thief running from a debt that was designed to never be repaid, who boards looking for escape and stays longer than calculation can explain.The trail narrows. The crew splits. While Andy follows an ancient thread toward a secret the Velari died to protect, Oren and Alpheus move through the empire's underground and discover that a treasure hunt and a revolution can be the same thing. Testimony travels through the same networks that carry contraband. Ghost ships crewed by no one become a fleet crewed by people who have stopped believing the empire is inevitable. And behind all of it, the emperor is watching, patient, certain that one small ship will lead him to the weapon he needs to save a civilization that is already past saving.What Andy finds at the trail's end will rewrite everything he thought he knew about where he came from. What he does with it is the choice the whole book has been building toward.This is a story about the people who stay. Not because they have to. Because someone has to make sure what comes next is worth living under.

The city was a cold mistress, her streets slick with the rain of a thousand unwashed sins, a black mirror reflecting the hollow shells of men who had long since traded their souls for a nickel.Barney Stubbs is the last of a dying breed. A hardboiled private investigator who knows that in this concrete jungle, you either hunt or you're the prey. He navigates the shadows of his sanctuary, nursing the whiskey-soaked regrets of a life lived on the edge, waiting for the one case that will finally break him—or make him.In reality, Barney lives in a 150-square-foot office suite in a generic suburban business annex.He sleeps on an itchy office couch, performs "e;bird baths"e; in a stained porcelain sink, and believes the rattle of his cheap desk fan is the "e;spinning blade of fate."e; His "e;custom-tailored threads"e; are polyester thrift-store finds, and his signature "e;holster"e; check is just a nervous tug on a belt that's struggling to contain thirty extra pounds of "e;survival rations"e; from the lobby vending machine.When Cheryl Flemming—a woman Barney perceives as a tragic femme fatale but who is actually just an exhausted mother in athleisure—hires him to trail her husband, Barney is ready. He's certain Scott Flemming is a high-level operative preparing for a cold-blooded hit. He doesn't see a man in the middle of a wholesome mid-life crisis, whose "e;clandestine meetings"e; are actually ballroom dance classes and whose "e;secret codes"e; are just fitness app notifications.As Barney "e;infiltrates"e; strip-mall gyms and "e;evades"e; a cold-blooded syndicate hitman (who is actually just a very polite debt collector named Marcus), the world of pulp noir and modern suburban reality are on a hilarious collision course.The Annex of Shadows is a sharp-witted noir satire that masterfully employs the "e;Hard Split"e;—a dual narrative that contrasts Barney's dense, purple-prose internal monologue with the dry, clinical truth of his mundane reality.If you love the cynical wit of classic noir but realize that modern life is mostly just searching for lost keys and dodging late fees, Barney Stubbs is the detective you've been waiting for.

A kingdom poisoned from within. An enemy hiding in plain sight. A truth no one wants to hear.The prosperous Kingdom of Aldoria prides itself on its progressive tolerance, magical universities, and high culture. But beneath the veneer of absolute equity lies a creeping rot. The zealous Vokaran Empire, having failed to conquer Aldoria by force centuries ago, has found a deadlier weapon: ideological subversion. Disguised as desperate refugees, Vokaran infiltrators are embedding themselves in the highest courts and academies, systematically dismantling Aldoria's defenses from the inside out.Darian Vance, a devout paladin struggling with his Order's compromises, and Thorek Hammerfall, a master dwarven craftsman watching his guild be taxed into oblivion, are among the few who see the truth. Together with a brilliant but marginalized wizard, a charismatic street conman, an outcast elven ranger, and a half-elf diplomat playing a dangerous political game, they form an unlikely alliance to expose the conspiracy.But in a society where rational thought has been replaced by emotional manipulation, speaking the truth is the most dangerous act of all. The Vokari have turned Aldoria's own compassion into a weapon, and anyone who questions the narrative is quickly silenced, shamed, or destroyed.As the whisper campaign grows and the shadow of the Vokaran Empire lengthens over the kingdom, this fractured resistance must race against time to prove the invasion is real. But how do you fight an enemy when the very people you are trying to save refuse to believe they are at war?Welcome to Aldoria. The invasion has already begun.