Praise

Praise for Locked Down:

“Some guys just write about it, but some guys live it. THIS guy lives it. A trip to Hong Kong with an author who knows where the bodies are buried.” JAKE NEEDHAM, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Locked Down is a welcome newcomer to the thriller genre. The feisty female protagonist reminded me of Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. A victim of gross injustice, she fights back using computers and whatever else is handy in order to survive. A riveting read.” AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST DEAN BARRETT

“Thirty-year-old Nicole Grant has a cushy desk job in a private-sector IT security firm, with a regularly structured lifestyle. Everything changes when fate puts her into contact with a renegade CIA agent, fighting back against rogue elements of two world governments. Nicole must use her expertise and learn to adapt to the unexpected if she wants to survive in the explosive first Nicole Grant thriller by Ed Kovacs, Locked Down.

The plot is compelling, and fans of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, for example, will enjoy this. Locked Down is a brilliant techno-thriller teeming with suspense. Both Nicole and the series have a lot of potential for further development that one can only hope will be taken advantage of in later titles. In all, a superb start to a series that so far nails it on every major level.” —SP REVIEWS

 

Praise for The Russian Bride:

“Brisk, easy-to-read thriller.”
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

“Quick, entertaining action.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS

“This is a thriller packed so full of action, it leaves readers breathless. Kovacs does an incredible job at being technically accurate and easy to understand, so readers of all levels are engaged throughout. A must-read for fans of fast-paced stories that don’t let you go till the very end.” —RT BOOK REVIEWS

 

Praise for Burnt Black:

“Although he’s officially employed by the New Orleans Police Department as a detective, Cliff St. James (Good Junk, 2012, etc.) only works cases that are considered to be five-alarm. When St. James and partner Honey Baybee are called to an unusual death scene, St. James suspects that there may be foul play involved, but Honey disagrees. Investigating the world of New Orleans voodoo leads the two to what may be the inner workings of a Mexican drug cartel, and the mounting body count adds to their sense that their investigation has been cursed. The vibrant description of occult doings mixes well with the movements of the earthbound characters, making this Cliff and Honey’s best outing to date.” —KIRKUS

“Cliff St. James is a homicide detective in New Orleans, land of voodoo, hoodoo, and Papa LaBas, and when he and his partner walk in on what looks like murder by supernatural forces, he knows not to get all rational. He’s seen some mighty strange stuff, so maybe logic is just one way of looking at things. A fine, offbeat procedural.” BOOKLIST

 

Praise for Good Junk:

Publisher’s Weekly reviews Good Junk.

Read Ed’s Interview with Publisher’s Weekly.

“…a compelling investigation into the world of a high end “Buyers Club” of black projects goods that mixes a healthy dose of high-end government agents with rogues from around the world… many twists and turns… but it’s well worth trying to find the way.” —KIRKUS

“Kovacs maintains a fast pace, and his descriptions of a steamy, seamy, badly managed city that is failing to recover from Katrina are jolting… Good Junk has plenty of action—and high-tech gadgetry…” —BOOKLIST

“The action in “Good Junk” is fast and filled with multiple puzzles for St. James and his would-be lover to solve. A multitude of stealth gadgets, security gizmos and exploding pens worthy of James Bond are employed by St. James in the process.” —ASSOCIATED PRESS

“…the scenes of New Orleans are rich and real. Kovacs hopeless, elegiac vision of the city is touching, and his quick studies of hidden landmarks like the outré bar in the French Quarter that calls itself Pravda, and Pampy’s, a purveyor of soul food to politicians, are written with true affection and terrific humor.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

 

Praise for Storm Damage:

Storm Damage gets seal of approval! I’ve worked with Ed Kovacs on several security contract details, including in New Orleans. This is a dynamic, page-turning thriller, a tale of murder and mystery, post-Katrina. DANNY JONES, RETIRED U.S. NAVY SEAL

A sleeper here, a beautiful spin on hard-boiled fiction that respects the conventions—starting with the knockout female client with an agenda—rather than mocking or aping them. The hero is damaged goods, the politicos are corrupt, other guys you can’t figure out at all, and it’s all done with style and energy.

The setting is New Orleans, just pulverized by a Katrina-like hurricane. The storm also swept away a crime scene, and that’s why the hormonal woman seeks out PI Cliff St. James. Was that really her father’s body on the floor of the Tiki Hut? St. James’ investigation doesn’t end there: simply asking questions leads him to hints of a sneaky CIA plot and occasions the kind of cleansing bloodbath that has readers feeling like they’ve wandered happily into Hammett’s Red Harvest.

For the finale, Kovacs isn’t content to just have the hero explain everything. The revelations come during a freshly imagined, boozily whirling Mardi Gras party. The author works hard to make his world a place you can almost reach out and touch. —BOOKLIST

As the book opens, it’s five months, 15 days into the “new normal,” as residents called the time just after the storm. Kovacs’ hero, Cliff St. James, was a policeman until the hurricane. He is now teaching martial arts, but he’s broke and going deep into debt.

In “Storm Damage,” everyone has an ulterior motive and everyone is dirty, especially the police and Detective Sgt. Dice McCarty, who was St. James’ nemesis when he was on the force. McCarty has since hooked up with St. James’ ex-wife.

As St. James looks for answers, he wanders through a city that is as dark — and the characters as hard to pin down — as the floodwaters still swirling in many of the city’s streets.

Finding out what happened isn’t going to be easy. The body disappeared with the flood, and so did any evidence. That’s not to say St. James won’t find out a lot about his old friend, including a connection with the CIA.

By the time Mardi Gras hits the storm-torn streets, St. James is trying to not only solve a mystery, but also avoid a killer who’s looking for him.

Kovacs has written a fast-paced, gritty novel in which no one is to be trusted and nothing is as it seems. His noir take on the thriller will hook readers and make residents of New Orleans glad that although things were bad in their city, they weren’t as bad as Kovacs paints them. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Kovacs’ gritty debut, the first in a series set in post-Katrina New Orleans, introduces PI Cliff St. James. Some six months earlier, on the night the Category Five hurricane hit the city, Cliff, then a cop on his last shift for the NOPD, was at a crime scene—the Tiki Hut bar, where a friend of his, building inspector Sam Siu, lay on the floor, shot in the back of the head. Cliff left before the huge storm swept away the Tiki Hut with the body.

Now Sam’s grown daughter, Twee Siu, wants Cliff to find out why her father was killed. Nearly everybody connected to the murder investigation has something to hide, including Twee, who’s holding back key information; Sam’s druggie girlfriend and bar manager, Kiesha Taylor; corrupt former New Orleans mayor Marlin Duplessis; and Vietnamese gang leader Jimmy Nguyen. Cliff takes plenty of knocks, but proves as resilient as New Orleans in this action-filled crime novel.—PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

For Cliff St. James, the hard-hitting PI (literally: he dabbles in mixed martial arts on the side) in Kovacs’s debut, life has a dividing line. There’s before the Storm and after. Since he lives in New Orleans (“Nu-whohr-lins” for those of us who use books to brush up on our regional accents), it almost seems like an insult call said Storm “Hurricane Katrina.” The “K” word is barely uttered. That’s what outsiders say, people who watched the disaster unfold on TV, not the ones who still live without electricity, some in FEMA trailers, some in patched-together houses that were, only five months before we meet Cliff, submerged in water tainted with sewage and enough bacteria to leave swatches of mold in its wake. But all of this, coupled with the police department’s barely 20% solve rate for homicides, is part of the New Normal. And just as the perpetually damp buildings are prime breeding grounds for mold and decay, the struggling city is ripe for crime.—CRIMINAL ELEMENT

In solving the murder mystery, readers are taken on a wild ride through New Orleans as it existed just after the hurricane hit. The novel’s plot has plenty of action, loads of suspects, and undeniable suspense. The main character, Cliff St. James, is a likable leading man, and the villains (of which there are an endless supply) perfectly suit the storyline. This thoroughly enjoyable thriller showcases the author’s talent well, and as a security contractor himself, it’s likely that there are plenty more great stories worth telling in his repertoire. His readers, no doubt, will be awaiting them. REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE

Ed Kovacs comes out of the gate with a bang. STORM DAMAGE is ultra fast-paced, moving, and nicely devious. Highly recommended. JONATHAN MABERRY, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Hard-edge. Frenetic. This tale is fluid, dark, and compelling. Ed Kovacs is a vivid addition to the thriller genre. STEVE BERRY, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Powerful as a Category Five hurricane, Storm Damage by Ed Kovacs is a riveting journey into murder, politics, and greed. Kovacs writes like a master, bringing to exciting life colorful and cosmopolitan New Orleans. In the aftermath of Katrina, brand-new private investigator Cliff St. James is thrown into a cauldron of lies, felonies, and violence just as Mardi Gras begins. This is a spicy, thrilling story as unforgettable as an excellent gumbo. GAYLE LYNDS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF SPIES

With a penchant for descriptive accuracy, Ed Kovacs provides page-turning excitement in this New Orleans centered murder mystery. In fact, if you allow yourself to become immersed, you’ll probably be able to hear the jazz playing in the background—it’s that intense. JOHN ALEXANDER, AUTHOR OF FUTURE WAR

 

Praise for Unseen Forces:

Midwest Book Review

UNSEEN FORCES is a thrilling novel about independent archaeologist Dr. Sky Wilder, who discovers an Egyptian stone tablet holding key secrets to a formula for physical immortality. A power grab and clandestine war between secret brotherhoods and covert agencies results. Diana Hunt, the U.S. military’s most accurate remote viewer – a psychic spy – devotes her talent to keeping Dr. Wilder alive. Yet the forces behind the lethal multi-tiered battle are far greater than mere mortals could suspect, and will culminate in a devastating conflict to decide the fate of humanity. A taut, suspenseful story that keeps the reader riveted to the pages until the very end.

The Daily Grail

“Nobody said a treasure hunt was easy.” Maverick archaeologist Sky Wilder.

Sky Wilder is an archaeologist walking the edges of academia, mocked by his peers for pursuing the alternative. When he breaks a code that could locate Ancient Egyptian stone tablets holding the key to immortality, more than just his academic reputation is at stake. Secret forces in the world, who have been manipulating global governments and finances for millennia, will stop at nothing to possess the key to eternal life … and Sky Wilder is in their way.

This is the basis for Ed Kovacs’ explosive debut novel Unseen Forces. Conspiracy buffs and alternative armchair archaeologists will rejoice at the sheer number of fringe topics Kovacs has managed to weave into a plot that is as exciting as it is believable. Secret societies, corrupt billionaires, military psychic programs, Ancient Egyptian magick, Burmese refugees, Navajo sarcasm … this book has it all.

Assigned to help Sky Wilder – or so it seems – is Diana Hunt, one of the American military’s best psychic warriors, and a stunningly gorgeous woman as well. She could easily have become the Bond girl of the story, but Kovacs constructs her personal story with depth and feeling, and she quickly becomes a character that is vital to the book.

Perhaps the most important part of the book involves Wilder and Hunt’s foray into the borderlands of Thailand and Burma – the infamous Golden Triangle of military corruption, drug trafficking, and human rights abuses. Kovacs draws on his own personal travel experiences in the Golden Triangle to create a thought-provoking and deeply moving part of the story that can seem a little bit at odds with the novel’s James Bond-like ending. The plight of the Burmese people is a real one, and this is where Sky Wilder draws upon his inner resources – courage, conscience, and sheer guts and determination – to fight the greed and corruption of the Burmese Junta.

Unseen Forces is a terrific debut novel that literally has something for everyone, and it deserves to be on the bestseller lists. It’s unique enough to stand out from the supermarket crowd, but not too out-there that it alienates its readers.

 

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