Berthoud Community Library District

"There are killers so savage, so twisted, that they leave a mark not just on their victims, but on everyone who crosses their path. For Detectives Bentz and Montoya, Father John, a fake priest who used the sharpened beads of a rosary to strangle prostitutes, is one such monster. Bentz thought he'd ended that horror years ago when he killed Father John deep in the swamp. But now there are chilling signs he may have been wrong. A new victim has surfaced,...

Forming a partnership with a prostitute, a down-on-his-luck con man recklessly agrees to a friend's request to orchestrate a theft in a Los Angeles apartment, where a crew of soldiers is reputed to have stashed millions in cash smuggled out of Afghanistan. Rumor has it that two million dollars in army money was smuggled out of Afghanistan and is stashed in an apartment in Los Angeles. Rowan Petty, a conman down on his luck, heads south with his sweet-talking...

As Moll Flanders rises from the infamous Newgate Prison to fame, wealth, and respectability, Moll comes to embody all the excess and vitality of an era

Two men working as ranch hands in New Mexico in 1952 find their lives and values changed forever.

"The dangerous streets of Nanjing throw together a group of opposites, a flock of shell-shocked schoolchildren, a dozen seductive courtesans, and a renegade American posing as a priest to save his own skin, or so he thinks, all seeking safety behind a walled cathedral. Trapped by marauding soldiers, over the next few days the prejudices and divides between them will fall away as they unite around a last ditch plan to protect the children from impending...

THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITER OF THE 21ST CENTURY
 
William Johnstone single-handedly shaped the landscape of frontier fiction with his classic Mountain Man series. Now he returns to the West with a gritty, realistic tale of blood struggles, revenge, and honor—the saga of a man whose legend would spread across a brave new land.
 
Rescue
 
In California, Frank Morgan nearly found a home. But now he's pulled...

When Hector Lewis told his daughter that she had a nothing face, it was just another bit of tossed-off cruelty from a man who specialized in harsh words and harsher deeds. But twenty years later, Heloise considers it a blessing to be a person who knows how to avoid attention. In the comfortable suburb where she lives, she's just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capital,...

The central plot of "Crimson Petal" involves the efforts of a young hooker (Sugar) to escape a horrendous teen life, and then find her way in a more successful metropolitan society. Her benefactor (or more appropiately , "Sugar" daddy) Rackham, has his own baggage (a mentally disturbed wife, an ill child and a very troubled brother), and his bringing Sugar into the mix both complicates and liberates his life. This isn't a happy ending story, however,...

The Centennial State had its share of working girls and madams like Mattie Silks and Jennie Rogers who remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, but Jan MacKell Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.