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Mario Vega is seven years old and his life is about to change forever. Across the street in an exclusive suburb of Seville his father lies dead on the kitchen floor and his mother has been suffocated under her own pillow. It appears to be a suicide pact, but Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón has his doubts when he finds an enigmatic note crushed in the dead man's hand.

In the brutal summer heat Falcón starts to dismantle the obscure life of Rafael Vega only to receive threats from the Russian mafia who have begun operating in the city. His investigation into Vega's neighbours uncovers a creative American couple with a destructive past and the misery of a famous actor whose only son is in prison for an appalling crime.

Within days two further suicides follow – one of them a senior policeman – and a forest fire rages through the hills above Seville obliterating all in its path. Falcón must now sweat out the truth, which will reveal that everything is connected and there is one more secret in the black heart of Vega's life.

When Jack Collins answers an ad asking for a young man with a background in mathematics and fantastic literature, he finds himself working for the legendary Merlin and battling an evil computer hacker who has summoned an ancient demon to terrorize Chicago.<

Jack Collins’s business trip to Las Vegas is anything but fun and games. Why? Because his boss is Merlin the Magician—and Jack’s job is saving the modern world from ancient dark forces.

A centuries-old legend, the Old Man of the Mountain, has returned with a vengeance. This time he has science on his side—a vial of biological plague germs as deadly as any black magic—and he plans to sell it to the highest bidder. The winner could be demon, devil, or demigod. Either way, the loser is humanity. But a new gambler is vying for a piece of the action: Jack Collins. And he’s packing a weapon that strikes fear in the hearts of humans and nonhumans alike: advanced mathematics…

Chuck Chandler, a Key West tennis pro, tends to choke in his big matches, a tendency he must overcome when he meets Harry Carras and his beautiful wife Clare, and becomes a suspect in Harry's death.<