Ron McLarty

"A three-hour drive from Washington, D.C., two clandestine institutions face each other across a heavily guarded river. One is the world's most unusual laboratory, whose goals and funding are a mystery. The other is an elite CIA training camp shrouded in secrecy. Now a man and a woman are about to run a gauntlet between these two puzzle factories, straight into a furious struggle to exploit a potentially world-shattering discovery -- and keep some...

Mercy Watson #5: Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig
Eugenia and Baby Lincoln may live next door to a pig, but that doesn’t stop them from living a gracious life. And the amiable Mercy Watson is equally determined to follow the delightful scent (and delicious taste) of the pansies her thoughtful neighbors are planting to beautify their yard. "Where have all the flowers gone?" shouts Eugenia, who is finally ready to take extreme...

Mercy Watson thinks like a pig: After Mercy Watson follows the delightful scent and delicious taste of the pansies her thoughtful neighbors plant to beautify their yard, animal control officer Francine Poulet is called out to handle the case, which brings unexpected results. Something wonky this way comes: Mercy Watson goes to the movies and she's on a mission-for true buttered popcorn.

Relates the surprising gifts bestowed on twelve-year-old Bob Barnhart and his family, who have recently moved to a small Illinois town in 1958, by their larger-than-life neighbor, Mrs. Dowdel.

It was no crime for a young cowboy to want to talk to a pretty girl, but that was what got Tom Lundy killed. The hard men of the Tumbling B, who had survived stampede and Kiowa lance to drive their herd up from Big Bend country, wanted to burn the town down. But Kate Lundy, the Tumbling B's owner, had a better plan. Calling on dozens of seasoned fighters, Kate aimed to strangle the town that lived off cowboy money but had no use for the Texans themselves....

A reunion on a ranch of three unhappily married women, who were friends in college, leads to three new romances. The women are Tanya, a rock singer whose third marriage is collapsing and who organizes the reunion; May, the wife of a high-powered New York lawyer; and Zoe, a doctor who runs an aids clinic and who has caught the disease.

The suicide of a woman and the disappearance of her teenage son, Mark, draws the boy's uncle, Timothy Underhill, back to his hometown of Millhaven, where his investigation uncovers a neighborhood haunted by a serial killer.

The Florida sleuth, Doc Ford, receives a call from the daughter of a dead CIA colleague, saying her mother is missing and asking for help. The search for the mother takes Ford to the Canal Zone in Panama where he encounters a deadly con man.

In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior--for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism...