book cover of Nothing to Lose
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Nothing to Lose

(2025)
(The second book in the Pax West series)
A novel by

 
 
Pax West, a former CIA Ghost with no past and no future, alights a bus in Portland, Oregon. It seemed as good a place to visit as any. Plenty of interesting things to see. He wasn’t there long before a sheriff arrests him for the murder of a local young woman. A murder he didn’t commit. The sheriff says he has him on CCTV. The woman was his niece, making this personal. The usual judicial rules didn’t apply as far as he was concerned.

Pax was thrown into Oregon State Penitentiary. He wasn’t upset. It was a mistake, but it would get cleaned up in the morning. No harm no foul. Besides, he was looking for a place to sleep tonight anyway. He had nothing to lose. Inside, Pax witnessed another inmate – Elliot Brooks – getting beaten up. It was an uneven fight. Four, heavyset men on one skinny kid with glasses. Pax let it happen. It wasn’t his fight. Then, when it looked like they were going to kill him, Pax’s primitive moral compass kicked in – letting the kid die crossed the line.

After dealing with the situation the only way Pax knew how, Elliot cursed him for saving his life. He deserved to die. It would have been a blessing. Two years earlier, Elliot had woken up at home with a baseball bat covered in blood. The blood’s DNA was a match to his own daughter. They never found her body, but there was too much blood at the scene for her to have possibly survived. Police found high levels of amphetamines in his system. He couldn’t remember a thing about the night. But the evidence was clear – he’d killed his own daughter.

The next morning, Elliot had a visit from his wife, who hadn’t spoken to him since his nightmare had begun two years earlier. She didn’t say anything to him. Just handed him a photograph. It didn’t have a date or anything on it. The picture was at Six Flags Magic Mountain, California. A theme park for high adrenaline rollercoaster enthusiasts. He barely saw the rides. Instead, his eyes landed on a girl, about six years old smiling into the camera. The sight took his breath away. She looked familiar. Not just familiar. Identical. Without a doubt in his mind, he knew in that instant, it was Amy – his Amy. She was two years older, but very much alive.

For the first time in two years, Elliot wanted to live. Knew he now had to escape Oregon State Penitentiary, where he was serving a life sentence with no chance of parole. Then, he had to find his little girl and get her back from the monsters who had taken everything from him. Elliot had no idea how to do any of those things, but if anyone could help him, he knew it was the big guy who had turned up in his cell last night.

The question remained, was Pax West willing to risk everything to save a stranger?

Genre: Thriller

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