L.J. Sellers – författare

When a call from his daughter, Katie, interrupts his much-needed vacation, Detective Wade Jackson knows it’s bad news. As Katie tearfully announces that her mom—Jackson’s ex-wife, Renee—is missing, Jackson suspects alcoholic Renee has climbed back inside the bottle that destroyed their marriage. But the truth is far worse: kidnappers have snatched Renee and are demanding ransom from her wealthy fiancé.

The very same night, someone dumps a savagely beaten University of Oregon coed on the doorstep of the ER. Jackson’s protégé, Detective Lara Evans, must identify the unconscious victim, then track down the assailant with no leads to go on…except the whispered rumor of a secret sorority.

Meanwhile, Eugene’s new FBI liaison, Agent Carla River, takes charge of Renee’s high-tech ransom operation while Jackson comforts his distressed daughter and retraces the steps of the mother she holds dear. But as the rescue takes a deadly twist and the suspects seem willing to let Renee die rather than crack under interrogation, Jackson worries that Katie will never forgive him if her mother is lost forever.

Fresh off the leave-of-absence he took following his ex-wife’s tragic death, Detective Wade Jackson’s life is in upheaval. He struggles to keep his grief-stricken, out-of-control daughter, Katie, from succumbing to the same alcoholism demon as her mother, while trying to reinvigorate a passion for his work. When a body is found in a local storage unit, Jackson hopes a simple open-and-shut homicide case will help him get back on track. But when the victim is identified as ex-con Craig Cooper—a former meth addict who did time for bank robbery, the spoils of which were never recovered—it becomes quickly apparent that the case will be challenging.

The same night Cooper is murdered, a firebomb goes off in a bottled water factory on the other side of town. The prime suspects are from an organization called Love the Earth—eco-terrorists believed to be modeling themselves after the infamous Earth Liberation Front. Fears that new group is plotting another attack bring agents from the ATF and FBI to town, among them Jamie Dallas, an undercover agent with a wild streak, and Carla River, an FBI agent with a complicated past. When Jackson discovers a shocking link between the murder case and the bombing, they will have to work together to solve both crimes before they blow up in their faces.

As a thirty-two-year-old, single restaurant manager, Jenna McClure is all too aware of her ticking biological clock. Elizabeth Demauer, a fertility clinic doctor, helps her patients bear children—a joy she can never share. But these two women have more in common than just a yearning for motherhood. When they cross paths, Elizabeth sees not only the sister she never knew existed but the once-in-a-lifetime chance to realize her deepest desire…by any means necessary.

Together with her lover—a rogue physician and charismatic cult leader—Elizabeth masterminds the ultimate theft. But their carefully laid plans could be derailed by Eric Troutman, the heroic reporter who’s fallen in love with Jenna and will stop at nothing to solve her sudden disappearance. And the more his relentless investigation tightens the noose around Elizabeth and David, the more their “victimless crime” threatens to become anything but.

Ten years ago, Hector Vargas confessed to the cold-blooded murder of Detective Wade Jackson’s parents. Now, facing his own death, Vargas has reached out from prison to declare his innocence. Armed with the shocking new truth that dirty cops railroaded Vargas, Jackson must revisit the painful past to get justice for his parents—and jail the ruthless killer.

Meanwhile, Gina Stahl awakens from a two-year coma with a chilling message on her lips: He tried to kill me. Now Detective Lara Evans must probe the young woman’s desperate claim that her near death was not failed suicide, but attempted murder.

As their investigations intersect, Jackson tangles with his estranged brother, hunts a loan shark turned philanthropist, and confronts his parents’ long-buried secrets, while Evans contends with a relentless reporter, shadows a fellow cop with a dangerous reputation, and struggles with her feelings for Jackson. But the more dark revelations they make, the deadlier the resistance they face from a killer terrified of losing everything…and willing to stop at nothing.

Just over a decade into our future, America is a stricken country where jobs are scarce, health care is a luxury for the wealthy, and hope rides on the annual Gauntlet games—a punishing physical and mental competition where the victor brings not only pride but an economic windfall back to his or her home state.

In the 2023 games, former police detective turned paramedic Lara Evans represents Oregon. But the contest’s notorious obstacles and cutthroat rivalry may be the least of her challenges. After saving a government bureaucrat’s life—and literally dodging a bullet—she finds herself in the crosshairs of a relentless hit man. And when another Gauntlet contestant is murdered, a stroke of bad luck puts Lara on the wrong end of damning evidence.

Still, the games must go on. And with the country, the law, and a killer watching her every move, Lara must use all her strength and savvy to beat the odds, claim the prize, and win back her life in the most dangerous game of all.

Previously Available as The Suicide Effect

Sula Moreno knows too much. Working in public relations at Prolabs Pharmaceutical, it’s her job to put a positive—and profitable—spin on the company’s products. That includes the exciting new antidepressant Nexapra, the linchpin in a corporate merger that will save the faltering Prolabs from going under. But when Sula discovers the shocking truth about a lethal flaw in the drug, there’s no good way to spin the potential death of millions of consumers.

Karl Rudker, the company’s ruthless CEO, disagrees. To safeguard Prolabs’s bottom line—and his own place at the top—he’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep the facts about Nexapra’s dangerous side effects secret, even if it means putting an end to more than just Sula’s job. And when the only other person who can expose Rudker ends up murdered, Sula knows her boss is playing for keeps. But she also knows taking on her psychopathic superior is the only way to stop a fatal drug from flooding the market…and unleashing a wave of death.

Outside a local bar, a man is drugged and slashed to death with a scalpel. Inside a local bank, a woman suffers a fatal heart attack after learning her life savings have been plundered.

The crimes are as different as the night and day they occur. The vicious murder is a case for Eugene’s Violent Crimes Division, but the more Detective Wade Jackson and his homicide team probe into the death of Rafel Mazari—an Iraq War veteran with disturbing secrets—the more it appears that one crime’s victim may be the other’s perpetrator.

While there’s damning evidence that Mazari died at the hands of his cheating wife, a phantom internet veterans’ charity—the same one that wiped out the heart attack victim’s bank account—keeps cropping up at every turn of Jackson’s investigation. And when Mazari’s best friend turns up murdered in identical fashion, Jackson suspects a motive that’s deeper, darker, and more devastating than broken vows and love turned lethal.

The scene is a bloodbath: Jared and Carla Walker lie brutally bludgeoned and stabbed to death, along with their young son, while their teenage daughter barely clings to life. Detective Wade Jackson’s boss believes a gang of carjackers has graduated to home invasion…and homicide. But there are other suspects in the mix: a bitter brother-in-law convinced the Walkers ripped him off big-time, a young heroin addict in forbidden love with the Walker’s daughter, and the shady former employer who was being blackmailed by Jared Walker.

Still, with only inconclusive forensic evidence and a sole survivor who can’t remember anything, Jackson and his team are getting nowhere fast. And so is Jackson’s personal life—as he duels over money with his alcoholic ex, struggles to raise his teenage daughter, and fights to keep his high-pressure job from destroying his new romance. Add the looming specter of departmental downsizing, and things couldn’t possibly get worse. At least until the only living witness to the massacre vanishes—along with the shocking truth buried in her mind—and the killer follows in hot pursuit.

When a young mother is found murdered in a derelict Eugene neighborhood—and her terrified young son is discovered hiding beneath the floorboards—Detective Jackson reluctantly takes the case. His own life is already in chaos, with his runaway teenage daughter, Katie, still gone and his girlfriend, Kera, facing her own family crisis. Matters get more complicated when the orphaned boy bonds with Jackson, triggering unexpected emotions and compromising his ability to investigate. Meanwhile, Detective Evans, one of Jackson’s most valuable colleagues, is pulled off the case to look into the death of a University of Oregon football star—leaving the homicide task force shorthanded. As Jackson works to solve the murder and find a home for little Benjie, he soon faces devastating choices that threaten everything he holds dear.

On a chilly Oregon morning, a policeman is found slain near the homeless camp where he’d been passing out blankets the night before. When Detective Jackson is called to the scene, witnesses point to a pair of mentally ill street twins as the likely perpetrators.

As the case progresses and arrests are made, the homeless community revolts against the police, and the chaos pulls detectives away from their investigations. Tension mounts, and the evidence begins to link a series of sexual assaults to the death of the murdered officer. The task force is quickly faced with a dangerous decision: Should they risk the life of another young victim to catch the killer?

Two world-renowned scientists have disappeared, and FBI agent Andra Bailey is assigned to find them and hunt down the kidnapper. She’s exactly the right person to get it done. In her personal life, Bailey works hard to control her sociopathic tendencies. But on the job, her cold logic comes in handy.

The agent soon suspects that a rare-metal shortage may be the link between the disappearances and that the motive is far more dangerous than she imagined. With the tech market in turmoil and prices sky-high, electronics companies and their power-hungry CEOs are ready to do anything—even kill—to keep production lines going.

When a third scientist disappears, Bailey throws caution aside to track the crimes to their source. But the clock is ticking on the scientist’s life, and when the bureau pulls its support, Bailey is on her own to stop the meltdown.

Detective Wade Jackson is in for a shock when he’s summoned to the police chief’s office—his sergeant has been poisoned, and Jackson’s been tapped to lead the investigation.

But before the Eugene Violent Crimes unit has a chance to respond, two people are gunned down at a licensed marijuana nursery. Jackson and his colleague Detective Lara Evans are on the case—but there are more suspects than evidence, and the crime is baffling.

Soon, more people are hospitalized, and when Evans discovers a link between the poisonings and edible pot, she and Jackson suspect that the product tampering and shootings are connected.

As the task force investigates new leads, it’s clear that the detectives are on a dangerous trail, one that forces them to question everyone—even their own team. But they’ll have to uncover the truth fast…before the next victim falls prey.

Roxanne MacFarlane is the Extractor—a former CIA agent who specializes in rescuing people from dangerous situations. She lives on the edge and works outside the law, but desperate families know she’s the only operative who can bring their missing loved ones home. Driven by guilt over the loss of her sister to a polygamous cult, she will stop at nothing to save her clients.

When Dave and Jenny Carson ask her to find their daughter, Emma, and extract her from a charismatic cult leader who preys on young women with guilt issues, Rox is eager to help them. But the experimental treatment she just started in order to improve her atypical brain patterns forces her to face conflicting newfound emotions while working feverishly to find the secret compound and craft a strategy to get Emma out.

When the bodies of young women who match Emma’s description turn up, Rox must fast-forward her plans. But the situation is more complicated and dangerous than she realizes, and her own life is soon in jeopardy. Can Rox save Emma and bring down a ruthless predator before more young women fall victim?