Mike Miner

The John Muir Trail follows the backbone of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from Yosemite National Park to the top of Mt. Whitney. This is the story of one couple's adventure as they follow what is perhaps the most magnificent and beautiful trail in the Country. Join this hapless band of hikers as they survive a series of encounters with Mother Nature and the Animal Kingdom, find out why it is that nobody eats dehydrated food unless they have to, and eventually remember that the one constant in life is that there are always lessons waiting to be learned.

Hailing from the Midwest, Sweden, Canada, and Ireland, my immediate ancestors may have been the most dissimilar collection of human beings ever assembled. Yet, as different as they were individually, they had something extraordinary in common: their lives neatly bracketed the entirety of the 20th century. A period of unprecedented innovation, conflict, discovery, and change. A period when forces never before experienced moved them in directions no one could have foreseen-and they have the stories to prove it.

Captain Patrick Donovan was once a real American hero. Used to run missions for special forces, for the CIA. Now he is a pirate, a mercenary making a handsome living in the Southwestern U. S. as a bag man for the cartels, a liaison between the suppliers and the buyers. He is haunted by the sins of his past, by a mission gone terribly wrong. He can't stop thinking about the soldier who rescued him, Chris Rogers. The man who took a bullet in his spine to save Donovan and his men. When Donovan learns that Chris was murdered by local thugs, guilt nags him. He and his men will tear Dorchester, Massachusetts apart to find the gangster responsible and avenge Chris's death. But nothing in life is simple. When Chris' young son takes matters into his own hands, the stakes are raised and Donovan faces a choice. Walk away or sacrifice himself for Chris' wife and child. Donovan is done with walking away.

On a warm, quiet morning in a speck of a town near the Mexican border, an old man stops at an airstream diner and orders coffee. When the owner of the diner appears, the old man shoots him to death, pays his bill, and drives away. The sheriff, Leo Murphy is called in to investigate the murder. His instincts lead him to his brother, Ryan. The black sheep of the family, Ryan Murphy lives just south in Mexico. He makes a living as a coyote, moving illegal cargo across the border. The brothers have an arrangement regarding Ryan's illegal enterprise: Don't ask, don't tell. When the old man's car breaks down in the middle of the desert Leo takes him into custody. If only things had gone according to Ryan's plan. Now a cold-blooded killer named Wicked Bill is on his way from Miami to help Ryan clean things up. The Murphy brothers need to redefine the lines they will and won't cross to protect each other and those closest to them from interlopers on both sides of the law. In True Dark, Mike Miner has created a vivid and dangerous world. Praise for TRUE DARK: "Admirers of Mike Miner's previous novels will undergo quick conversions to devoted fans when they read True Dark. Everything Miner does well--the spare dialogue loaded to within an inch of mercy, a story that doesn't so much unfold as uncoil, breathtaking tension--he has sharpened to a masterful art in True Dark. That Miner does this without ever letting go of your heart, no matter how jaded, is the mark of emerging genius." --James Anderson, author of The Never-Open Desert Diner and Lullaby Road "A carefully calibrated and complex page-turner that cascades over generations and decades without ever losing intensity. Miner keeps upping his game. Plot lines, eras, and characters interlace effortlessly in a well-crafted page-turner. Miner's skills have out-paced his peers. True Dark is a perfect crime novel." --Tom Pitts, author of 101 and American Static

In THE HURT BUSINESS, Mike Miner's subject is pain. The moments captured in these stories are like car crashes, quick and violent and life changing. Fasten your seatbelts, readers, you're in for a bumpy ride.