Road Kill (Joyride) (UK)

Released as Joyride in the United States.

 

Wayne keeps a record of offences. The kids who trash his fence, the dog that dumps in his yard, the guys  who give him stress in the bar – they’re all in his book. He hasn’t hit back yet, though the urge is strong. He’ll give in one day. He wonders why he hasn’t dared. So far.

 

Carole doesn’t want to do it but murder seems like the only solution. The only way to solve the problem of her ex – drunken, sadistic, clever. If the courts can’t protect her and the police can’t keep him away, how else will she ever be free?

 

On the sunny mountainside, above the creek, that’s where Carole has the courage to solve her problem. Her lover, Lee, has the baseball bat but she’s the one with the rock – and the nerve and desperation to crush a man’s skull and pitch him off a mountain.

 

Wayne sees it all. Every moment. It’s the very best day of his life. Because it points the way down the road for him. The killing road. And the way he plans it, he and Carole and Lee are all going to do a little traveling together…

Only Child (Stranglehold) (UK)

Released as Stranglehold in the United States.

 

Arthur Danse doesn’t live by the normal rules. He knows he has been put on earth for a purpose – to show people the the world is a dark and terrible place. To say no to Arthur Danse is to receive a lesson in fear and pain. No matter who you are. Wife…lover…stranger…or eight-year-old son.

 

Lydia McCloud is one of life’s givers. A nurse whose own hard upbringing gives her a special sympathy for those in need. Lydia doesn’t discover the real Arthur until it’s far too late. Until she’s married to him and their son Robert has become the centre of her world. And she’s forced into the battle of her life for the sake of her only child…

Off Season (UK)

This edition is slightly different than the original American edition, but not as complete as The Unexpurgated Edition.

 

From the Afterword to The Unexpurgated Edition (edited to avoid possible spoilers):

 

“There was one…change I made…for the British paperback.

 

At the very end of the original, [a character is] in the ambulance, shot up with painkillers and speculating through her haze on whether these people who are treating her are paramedics or doctors. She hoped they were doctors, reads the line.

 

A few months after the book was published I got a letter from a fan who said he’d enjoyed the read immensely. Until he got to that line.

 

He went on to say that he was in fact a paramedic and in [her] situation, she’d be far better off in the hands of a trained ambulance crew than with a bunch of doctors. I checked it out and he was right of course. Whoops. I hadn’t done my homework. I wrote back and apologized and thanked him for bringing the error to my attention and promised that if the book ever went into another printing anywhere I’d fix it.

 

In ’95 the Brits at Headline came along and I did.

Red (UK)

The old man hears them before he sees them, the three boys coming over the hill, disturbing the peace by the river where he’s fishing. He smells the gun oil, too much oil on a brand-new shotgun. These aren’t hunters, they’re rich kids who don’t care about the river and the fish and the old man. Or his dog.

 

Red is the name of the old man’s dog, his best friend in the world And when the boys shoot the dog – for nothing, for simple spite – he sees red, like a mist before his eyes.

 

And before the whole hing is done there’ll be more red. Red for blood…

 

Note: paperback edition also contains a sample from Road Kill (aka Joyride)

Offspring (UK)

The local sheriff of Dead River, Maine, thought he’d killed them off ten years ago – a primitive, cave-dwelling tribe of predatory savages. But he failed. Somehow the clan survived. To breed. To hunt. To kill and eat. And if the peaceful residents of Dead River are to survive, they too must unless their primal instincts. For blood…