Concealed in his jacket are ingots of gold; he just doesn't remember why.

A young girl running from an abusive foster home kidnaps an older biker with a mystery for a past.

Leaving the mining town in Colorado and crossing state lines, anything can happen.

What neither is looking for or expecting is friendship.

But in the cold of the desert night, life lessons can go both ways—even if they are not about a million dollars in gold.



Growing up is hard enough, even without the shooting.

Thorny Wallace returns to her hometown for peace and quiet. WWII is distant thunder in the small rural town, but Los Angeles is always a clear and present threat. As she begins to look into an old death, she finds that there is always more going on in the small quiet town. When she thinks she has the players figured out... the FBI shows up.

Unlike the hundreds of how-to books, Mr. Charlton leads us down a winding path leading to being a writer. Irreverent at times and solemn at others, he lays out his pratfalls of growing up but never mocks. His explanations are clear and concise. His short stories entertain but are there to draw from.This unique meandering through a writer's mind answers one of the essential questions writers answer in interviews: "How do you come up with _______?"Charlton introduces us to his formative people, explaining how he drew from each person to produce specific characters or circumstances. Consider this a cipher or companion handbook to his books. In his lectures on writing, Mr. Charlton explains writing dense or contextually rich novels that are not a drudgery to read. In his mysteries, he drops clues like a flirtatious southern lady would drop her handkerchief. Even the most innocent offhanded reference should never be a throwaway line. Throwaway lines are indirectly filler or fluff. In this day of expensive printing, word count should be the last bloviated fixture in a novel. Learning to write concise should be the goal of every writer. Charlton discusses writing to the changing word counts in journalism, or even to an exact word count for a contest. His writing exercises are merely for self-examination.He uses his family as a collection of tools and information about the varieties of family undercurrents. Ozzie and Harriet were good for thirty-minutes each week in the fifties but became tediously plebian for a novel-especially in a mystery or thriller. Better to substitute Ozzy Osbourne for the paternal role. Once he shows his lessons of youth, Mr. Charlton interjects some of his favorite short stories. These are the stories he uses as lessons, building characters real enough for them to snatch the storytelling from the writer and reveal the story, which is only theirs to tell.Characters, storytelling, novels, or movies will never be the same again. As Charlton loves to point out-not all mysteries are murders, and not all murders are mysteries.

Gunnery Sargent Perceval Stone, a third generation Marine, is suddenly medically retired. After all of the collective damage of many wars and actions, an IED leaves him with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Stone is a walking mental time-bomb like so many others who have lost their compass. If he can't find his center and path, he may never get back.


Walking away confused. from the only home and family he has ever known, he has a phone in his pocket that he does not know how to use, a pesky yeoman stalking his every move, and is on an $800 motorcycle, headed west from Bethesda, MD searching for what it means to be a civilian, and what makes home, home.

In an effort to find his peace, he ends up beside a tranquil lake, watching a perfect sunset.

And then the phone rings . . .

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Thousands of military have come back--but couldn't find their way home. If you ever served, had a loved one who did, or just know someone--this is the book for you, and a gift for them.
Through the power of the internet, you can buy today, a gift for someone serving this country--somewhere else in the world. And they can start reading it tonight. Add that person to your cart now--they will thank you tomorrow.

As Los Angeles comes of age in the 1960s, two undercover cops struggle to maintain their balance in the growing drug trade. Boundaries are broken and borders are crossed in an effort to do good—while doing bad.

Newcomer Gabe learns from the masters. "Normal" is a meaningless word civilian society makes up, and the books (on being a cop) don't know squat. The irreverent, unconventional approach gets results.

And then he must learn to deal with the frat house and the very large snake.

A phone call in the night brings it all into focus—for a battle to save a life.

Of the approximately 1,000 immortals living today. Their immortality is derived from their nature of flowing into a new body when the old body is killed or dies.

Blake’s eyes smoldered with her anger. “Damn it, Manny. You did not say just to put him to sleep for a few hundred years. You specifically said you planned to kill him.” Her former husband, wife, commander, donkey, goat, and lover could rarely make her mad… but today…

The man picked up his tortoise and stood. He smiled. “Anyone ready for breakfast?”

As the salt begins to win the battle over pepper, Marsha finds herself, once again, sitting in a hospital with her father. This time is the last.

The walls are the same white, but now they begin to reflect on her life.

Always the dutiful daughter, and then the supportive wife, she was there. Mother, wife, daughter—but now she is facing a crisis of identity. As the daughterhood is closing, the wife was thrown aside long ago, and motherhood…

Marsha examines what is and what could have been…

In life, the road not taken is sometimes just another left turn.

Popular lesbian romance writer, Shye Ryder, teams up with Pulitzer Nominated, Baer Charlton, to bring a fresh telling of a very old refrain. With the combined introspection of Shye, and the gritty storytelling of Baer, the power of this subtle story will hit you in the gut and make you examine your own life. This is the book which will be talked about for years.

Tink, a young dragon on the verge of adulthood, who struggles with being different.

His life is simple and unambitious. That is until he is called on a great adventure. He will only survive with the help of family and friends.

Embarking on a hero's journey, he comes to the realization that being himself is the best way to be. The Very Littlest Dragon is a story that delicately describes the acceptance of being one's self and is a parable compatible with Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling.

It is written for all of us who grew up or will grow up believing they were or are—different. May we all find our inner dragon.

California's Orange County is famous for television shows of the rich and famous, the rich and disturbed, and neither. Big surf to flat surf, Orange County isn't what you see on TV.

A headless body turns up on a beach.

Former sheriff's detective Frank Pounds is dragged from medical retirement because he may know the identity of the body.

Dressed in an irreverent t-shirt, a pair of board shorts, and rainbow-painted huaraches showing off his pink toenails, he stands over a familiar body with a distinctive tattoo.

As he glares up the beach to the pier lined with camera vultures with long lenses, it turns personal.

Just released from prison, Jolie "Rocket" Richards struggles to get her life back after being incarcerated for seven years. As a former rodeo superstar, best horse trainer on the California central coast, the town drunk, and occasional slut, Rocket just wants her life back… and to find the person who framed her for the murder of her mother.

Romance, a new friend, or a new dog were never on her agenda.

Until a rifle bullet tears her life apart.

Hooker is a survivor and a tow truck driver. His family is a collective he has attracted and help him. Spring of 1973 in San Jose was starting nice, until Hooker witnesses the first of a killer stalking cops and killing them with a shotgun. Can he stop them before it becomes personal?