Written Under a Pseudonym

I had been writing to pay my way through medical school. I wrote paperback thrillers on vacations and weekends at a furious pace because the bills were due. I wrote under pseudonyms. In retrospect, it was wonderful training. Most of the problems beginning writers have—dealing with their egos, deciding if what they’re writing is good enough for them—didn’t affect me at all. No one knew I was doing it. It wasn’t under my own name. It was purely to make money to pay for my education. I wasn’t trying to be innovative. I was trying to do something that would be seen and not require rewrites or discussions, because I didn’t have time. I mean I just had to write it, it had to be bought and published, and I had to get the money and go back to my classes.

Michael Crichton

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On Sale 6/6/2023

Binary

Written as John Lange - 1972
In an age of political unrest, one man aims to bring the government to its knees—and there’s only one agent who can stop him. Wealthy political radical John Wright has taken aim at the US government, believing that only he can make things right. State Department Agent John Graves has been watching Wright for months, studying him, gathering intel, trying to determine his next move before he makes it. Now after hacking a government computer for secret files and stealing a shipment of VZ nerve gas, a binary agent, Wright has gathered everything he needs to unleash mass destruction on a million people – including the US president. As the clock winds down Wright and Agent Graves play a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with the fate of the government and a million innocent people hanging in the balance.

On Sale 6/27/2023

Grave Descend

Written as John Lange - 1970
A diver must discover the ugly truth behind a mysterious shipwreck—and keep his own head above water. Leagues below the sparkling blue water of the Caribbean Sea lies the mysterious wreckage of the Grave Descend. Protected by a wall of coral reef and blood-thirsty sharks, the corpse of the sunken yacht has been deemed unrecoverable by every diver in the world. Until James McGregor is offered a shot at it. For McGregor, a 39-year-old diver with a long history of unsavory salvage jobs, it’s his last chance at a big payday. But the more he learns about the wreck the more questions he uncovers – because none of the survivors are telling the same story. How did the ship really sink? What was its cargo? And why is this whole project starting to feel like a suicide mission?

On Sale 7/25/2023

Zero Cool

Written as John Lange - 1969
Ancient secrets, dangerous dames, ruthless gangs—just another dream vacation. For American radiologist Peter Ross, it sounded like the perfect vacation: deliver one study in Spain and then spend the rest of his time on a Mediterranean beach. But he wasn’t planning on meeting Angela Locke, a dark-haired beauty with a big problem – she’s on the run from two warring gangs, each dead set on finding a mysterious artifact, and they’ll kill anyone who stands in their way. It’s a desperate fight for survival across the European continent as Peter and Angela race to uncover a centuries-old secret before they become its next victim.

On Sale 8/22/2023

Easy Go

Written as John Lange - 1967
A fun heist caper and a wild romp through the Great Pyramids and beyond. Egyptologist Harold Barnaby has just made the discovery of the century. While retranslating some old hieroglyphs he has found clues to the location of a pharaoh’s lost tomb. But this discovery leads him to make the ultimate choice: Rather than share his find with the rest of the world, Professor Barnaby is determined to locate the tomb and keep whatever treasure he finds inside for himself. But to pull off the greatest heist in archaeological history, Barnaby will need help. Enter Robert Pierce, a transient freelance writer looking for excitement. They put together a five-man team including a smuggler, an international thief, and the fifth Earl of Wheatston to bankroll the project and set out to plunder the pharaoh’s lost tomb. But can this ragtag team survive the perils of the Egyptian desert and uncover what the centuries have kept hidden? And even if they find the treasure, can they escape with it alive?

On Sale 9/26/2023

The Venom Business

Written as John Lange - 1969
Crisp dialogue and sultry prose combine to weave an intricate web of intrigue greed and murder. Charles Raynaud has found the perfect cover for his smuggling operation running out of Mexico, because how many custom agents are going to want to inspect a carton of venomous snakes? When Raynaud runs into his old Yale buddy Richard Pierce, a chance to play bodyguard feels like even easier money. Pierce has a large inheritance coming, but a series of thwarted attempts on his buddy’s life makes Charles begin to smell a rat. Who’s really trying to kill whom? And why is Charles starting to believe that he’s the real target?

On Sale 10/24/2023

Drug of Choice

Written as John Lange - 1970
Not everything on Eden is as it seems. Or maybe nothing is. Two patients in comas not expected to live: when they both recover sharing the same bizarre symptom of blue urine it’s a medical miracle that Dr. Roger Clark cannot explain. One of the patients happens to be Sharon Wilder, a beautiful Hollywood starlet. When she offers Dr. Clark the chance to accompany her to the private Caribbean island called Eden, he has to accept – if only to learn more about the bioengineering company Advance Inc. and their promise to make your wildest dreams come true. What he discovers there will be the most shocking discovery of his life on an island paradise where nothing is as it seems.

On Sale 11/21/2023

Odds On

Written as John Lange - 1966
Will a perfectly planned heist be foiled by three perfectly beautiful women? Steven Jencks has planned the perfect crime. Working with two skilled associates he will hit the Reina, a super-luxury hotel off the coast of Spain, and then walk away with the haul of a lifetime. As the ultimate pro, Jencks has even run his plan through a complex computer simulation to account for every possible variable… Except three. Their names are Annette, Cynthia, and Jenny. And no computer could ever simulate what these three femmes fatales have up their sleeves.

On Sale 12/5/2023

Scratch One

Written as John Lange - 1967
A pulp-fiction thrill ride through a deadly case of mistaken identity. Playboy Roger Carr is handsome, wealthy, and connected. As an occasional lawyer, he’s the right man to send to the French Riviera to secure a villa for an important client. It’s the perfect assignment, complete with fast cars and fast women, until strange things begin to happen and Roger realizes that someone is trying to kill him. A ruthless terrorist organization called the Associates is carrying out assassinations from Egypt to Denmark. To stop them the CIA orders their own super assassin – a man who bears a striking resemblance to Roger Carr – to intercept the Associates in France. The CIA assassin never shows up but the clueless counselor does and now he finds himself on the run from some of the world’s deadliest terrorists.

A Case of Need

Written as Jeffery Hudson - 1968
In the tightly knit world of Boston medicine, the Randall family reigns supreme. When heart surgeon J. D. Randall’s teenage daughter dies during a botched abortion, the medical community threatens to explode. Was it malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic Oath? Or was Karen Randall murdered in cold blood?The natural suspect is Arthur Lee, a brilliant surgeon and known abortionist, who has been carrying out the illegal procedure with the help of pathologist John Berry. After Karen dies, Lee is thrown in jail on a murder charge, and only Berry can prove his friend wasn’t the one who wielded the scalpel. Behind this gruesome death, Berry will uncover a secret that would shock even the most hardened pathologist.

Dealing: Or the Berkley to Boston Forty-Brick Lost Bag Blues

Written as Michael Douglas - 1970
The suitcase looks like a standard weekend bag. But like the man who carries it, it isn’t what it seems. Lined with tinfoil to mask the smell, it is a smuggler’s bag and will soon be filled to the brim with marijuana bricks. The smuggler is a Harvard student who has come to California to make his fortune. He hopes to score not just with his connection but with his new girlfriend, a Golden State beauty with an appetite for fine weed. When the deal goes south, she takes the fall, and a crooked FBI agent swipes half the stash. To free his girl, this pothead will have to make the deal of a lifetime.