Cain/Harper Thriller Books

“Terrific—truly sinister, scary and suspenseful. Lyle never lets you down.” —Lee Child, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Raised as siblings by an itinerant “gypsy” family, knife expert Bobby Cain, trained by the US military in the lethal art of covert eliminations, and Harper McCoy, nurtured by the US Navy and the CIA to run black ops and wage psychological warfare, are now civilians. Of a sort. Employing the skills learned from the “family” and their training, they now fix the unfixable. Case in point: Retired General William Kessler hires the duo to track down his missing granddaughter, a Vanderbilt University co-ed. Their search leads them to a small, bucolic, lake-side town in central Tennessee and into a world of prostitution, human trafficking, and serial murder. The question then becomes: Will their considerable skills be enough for Cain and Harper to save the young woman, and themselves, from a sociopath with “home field” advantage, a hunter’s skills, and his own deeply disturbing agenda? “Skin in the Game is The Most Dangerous Game on steroids. Fast, relentless, and cunning.” —David Morrell, New York Times Bestselling Author of Murder as a Fine Art

“Prior bad acts predict future bad acts.” —Harper McCoy Fear grips an isolated mountain town after drug dealer Dalton Southwell kills a rogue dealer and his entire family. Score settled; message delivered. But Dalton’s best-laid plans go awry when his brother Dennie takes a bullet in the gut. In a panic, Dr. Buck Buckner is kidnapped from the local ER, a pharmacy is robbed and the owner murdered, and the killers melt into the rugged Tennessee hills. Buck’s physician father calls in Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy to rescue his son from killers who would have little use for him after he saves Dennie; or worse, the wounded man dies. But which direction and how far did they run? What hideaway did they burrow into? For Cain and Harper it’s a race against time to locate the killers, safely retrieve Buck, and settle their own score. “A born storyteller.” —Peter James, UK #1 Bestselling Author of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace Series

When Sonny Coleman is gunned down while on a late-night run near the community college where he teaches, his mother Erin Coleman, the US Ambassador to NATO, wishes to avoid his death becoming an international media circus. To this end, she hires Bobby Cain and Harper McCoy to discretely investigate her only son’s death. Shortly after their arrival in the rural Tennessee town, the body of a young woman is found and it appears she is the latest target of a killer known as The Tallyman, due to his tauntingly carving the victim number into the flesh of each corpse. But the killer, after tallying four murders, fell silent for several years. Why has he resurfaced now and why is the latest victim marked with a seven? Are there two missing bodies? Is his reappearance connected to the seemingly random murder of Sonny Coleman? The suspect list is tenuous at best and Cain and Harper must sort through past and present crimes, as well as Sonny’s life, to uncover a ruthless and truly sociopathic killer. “A fast-paced atmospheric thriller with endearing characters that stay with you long after you finish. A series that keeps getting better and better. Fans of Orphan X will love it.” —David Putnam Author of the Bestselling Bruno Johnson Series