A newspaper obituarist's passion for life is rekindled when he becomes obsessed with a beautiful actress. Then he meets her protector, the sinister John Purefoy, nicknamed "the raker."

RAKER 1. noun Remote Armed Kinesthetic Engagement & Reconnaissance android, used primarily by Fire Departments and Police Departments in the United States. RAKERs are deployed for rescue, bomb disposal, and other tasks which are deemed too dangerous for humans. Some models are being manufactured for the armed forces to serve as offensive battlefield weapons. Christopher A. Gray’s RAKER follows an incident one evening when Dr. Norman Stravinsky sends his RAKER android out to deliver a sensitive file to a colleague. When it encounters a crime in progress, the android must decide whether to interrupt its primary duties as bodyguard to Stravinsky in order to prevent the crime from continuing. The decision results in a confrontation between itself and the Seattle Police Department. Keywords: Robot, Android, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Police Corruption, Military conflict, Robot vs. Man

"A woman drives to a beautiful headland overlooking the Devon coast. She is never seen again, and no trace of where she went can be found. The woman's sister calls missing persons investigator David Raker. As Raker tries to find her whereabouts - fearing the worst - he learns that she was recently widowed from a reclusive film director. It seems that, going through her husband's belongings, she found a secret so dark and shocking that it forced her to leave her entire life behind. Chasing the truth will consume Raker and place him in grave danger . . ."

THE LATEST SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB THRILLER PICK FROM THE AUTHOR OF YOU WERE GONE Nine neighbours gather for a dinner party. But by the next morning, they had disappeared without a trace. No bodies. No evidence. No clues. Two and a half years later, it remains a mystery. Desperate for answers, the families of the missing turn to investigator David Raker. How did an entire village vanish overnight? And is he looking for nine missing people, or nine dead bodies? 'The terrific David Raker series - bliss!' LEE CHILD 'I was hooked from beginning to end. A dark, thrilling rollercoaster of a read that is not only unputdownable but has heart' Claire Douglas 'From the moment I read the intriguing premise for this book, I couldn't wait to dive in - and I wasn't disappointed. A clever and original plot, expertly executed' Rachel Abbott Praise for Tim Weaver: 'So many twists and surprises' Times 'Impressive' Guardian 'I couldn't put it down' Sun 'It had me racing to the end' Fiona Barton 'Genuinely original' Gillian McAllister

Missing persons investigator David Raker’s search for a teenage girl leads him toward a site haunted by a dark history—book two of Tim Weaver’s international bestselling mystery series Seventeen-year-old Megan Carver was an unlikely runaway. A straight-A student from a happy home, she studied hard and rarely got into trouble. Yet six months on, she still hasn’t been found. Missing persons investigator David Raker knows what it’s like to grieve. He knows the shadowy world of the lost, too. So when he’s hired by Megan’s parents to find out what happened, he recognizes their pain—but knows that the darkest secrets can be buried deep. And Megan’s secrets could cost him his life. Raker’s investigation takes him through a confounding string of surprises and deceptions. People close to Megan turn up dead. Others remain too terrified to talk. And soon the conspiracy of silence leads Raker towards a forest on the edge of the city. A place with a horrifying past as the hunting ground for a twisted serial killer. A place known as the Dead Tracks. . . .

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