Gallows Pole [Kindle Edition]

J.D. Rhoades (Author)

Book Description

Someone is killing entire families, forcing fathers to hang their wives and children before taking their own lives. How does the killer do it? And what is the meaning of the small iron horse the killer leaves at every murder scene? FBI agent Melissa Saxon and her handpicked team are racing against time to solve the mystery before more families die.

Former anti-terrorist operative Colonel Mark Bishop and the survivors of his command think they know. One of their own, a stone killer who calls himself the Hangman, has come out to play, and he's trying to draw out not only Bishop, but his former comrades—the elite team known as Iron Horse.

Only the Horsemen can stop one of their own. But the team is disbanded, the survivors scattered. Bishop himself is tormented by guilt for the things he had to do to keep one of his men from suffering an agonizing death. Their adversary is not only a skilled assassin, but a master at creating fear. Behind the scenes, shadowy and powerful figures pursue their own plans for Bishop and the Hangman.

Mark Bishop, Melissa Saxon, and the last of the Iron Horsemen will have to use all their courage and every resource, including an array of high-tech weapons, to stop the Hangman. What they have to do will put everything they ever believed in to the ultimate test and push Bishop to the edge of sanity.

"J.D. Rhoades delivers the goods and then some in the wonderfully suspenseful Gallows Pole."
-- Gary Phillips, author of The Underbelly

"J.D. Rhoades kicks ass!"
--J.A. Konrath

"Rhoades is a knock-em-dead writer. Always a fan. Get this."
--Anthony Neil Smith

Product Details

• File Size: 532 KB
• Print Length: 365 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0067CH9SQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,722 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Adrenaline-driven, rollicking adventure thriller January 1, 2012

By Ed Lynskey,

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed reading J.D. Rhoades' previous novel, GOOD DAY IN HELL, and so I wanted to check out his new ebook, GALLOWS POLE. It's an adrenaline-driven, rollicking adventure thriller, remindful of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt or Lee Child's Jack Reacher, only better written. Colonel Bishop and his Iron Horse special ops military squad use the latest warfare technology, including Lot Seventeen. Read their "A-Team" exploits to find out just what that secret stuff is, and how it works. How can you but not like the tough guys who've adopted Felix the Cat as their team mascot? FBI Special Agent Melissa Saxon is the kick-ass heroine, so the gentlemen don't keep the spotlight all to themselves. Much of the action occurs in the nearby Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, so I like the setting. There's a political edge behind the fireworks, and the main characters are multi-dimensional who keep it real. Great stuff enlivens your Kindle that sure did mine.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prepare to be thrilled to bits November 21, 2011

By Michael J. Burke

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

J.D. Rhoades has produced an enthralling high-tech thriller based on a not too unrealistic projection of possibilities should our democratic authorities lose control of the forces trained and employed in the current war on terror. An apt subtitle to this book might also be "How the Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions". Rhoades has assembled a cast of characters who span the spectrum from the grossly evil to the too good to be true and, as in real life, it is often hard to tell the difference between the two. High-tech gadgetry abounds and is used by both sides to good effect to combat the perceived threats. It is a violent book, but then it is an increasingly violent world.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Will both entertain and challenge you December 22, 2011

By Elizabeth A. White

Format:Kindle Edition

There's a killer striking families nationwide, leaving in his wake a scene so disturbing it rattles even seasoned law enforcement veterans. Entire families are being hanged in a methodical fashion, the father apparently made to be the executioner for his wife and each of his children in turn before taking his own life. Yet, enough clues have been left behind that it's clear these were not murder-suicides. The process is too similar, the presentation at each scene too exact, and most chilling, a calling card from the killer has been left behind at each of the mass murders: a small iron horse.

Melissa Saxon, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, understands she has her hands full with such a complex and sophisticated killer. When she receives a visit from two men who claim to have information about the killings she thinks it could be the break she's looking for. What she gets instead is an understanding that what's going on is even bigger and more dangerous than she could possibly have imagined. The men who've come to her are surviving members of an elite counter-terrorist team known as Iron Horse, and they believe the killer is one of their own, a man known as The Hangman, gone rogue. They believe they can help catch the killer, but it won't be easy. First they'll have to reassemble their team, including their psychologically scarred leader, Colonel Mark Bishop.

Ever since the team's return from Riyadh, Bishop has been in self-imposed isolation, haunted by the things he saw and, more damaging, was forced to do in the course of carrying out his team's missions. One particular choice he made, to torture crucial information out of the only person who knew the location of one of Bishop's captured team members, weighs especially heavily on his mind. If The Hangman is to be stopped, however, not only is Bishop going to have to confront his past demons, he's going to have to be willing to walk back into hell.

What unfolds is a high stakes game of cat and mouse fueled by plenty of action, sophisticated military gadgetry, and the kind of teamwork and comradery that makes military-tinged thrillers so enjoyable. Not content just to present a cookie-cutter thriller, however, author J.D. Rhoades has infused Gallows Pole with a solid core of morality, and challenges readers to question the steps taken by Bishop and his team in their quest to catch The Hangman. Rhoades does so by presenting scenarios that push the limits of easy choices, which place the characters in the uncomfortable position of weighing their options and having to choose not what's "right" and "wrong" - after all, that would be too easy - but between what's "wrong" and... "less wrong."

It's a thought-provoking approach to the complicated mess the world has become, especially in post September 11, 2001 America, one that acknowledges choices aren't always crystal clear, black and white. Rather, they are quite fuzzy, and are to be found somewhere amongst a thousand shades of grey. It takes a skilled hand to bring issues of such a serious nature into a work of fiction and not come across as preachy, simplistic, or to show your hand ideologically one way or the other, but Rhoades does so with aplomb.

Indeed, Gallows Pole is a book that will both entertain and challenge you. What more could you possibly ask for?

More About the Author

Bestselling author, attorney, award winning newspaper columnist--J.D. Rhoades is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but with a soft creamy center. He attended the University of North Carolina, where he majored in Spelling. A stint in UNC's creative writing program resulted in his not writing another word of fiction for 13 years, unless you count legal briefs.

In 1993, Rhoades' local newspaper, the Southern Pines, North Carolina, Pilot, apparently got tired of his snarky and sarcastic letters to the editor and asked him to write a weekly column. "Hey, smart guy," they said, "you think this is so easy, you try it!" "Hey," he said, "how hard could it be?" These proved to be the very words that have gotten him in more trouble than any others in his life, except maybe "hey, gorgeous, can I buy you a drink?"

After a few years and an award for the column from the North Carolina Press Association, the same editor grudgingly allowed as how Rhoades wasn't a complete hack after all, and suggested he write a novel. "Hey," he said, "how hard can it be?" The answer, as it turns out, was "very hard indeed."

He wrote a novel. It sank like a stone. For some inexplicable reason, he wrote another. That one, THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND, was picked up by St. Martin's Minotaur and was nominated for the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. novel. Two more Jack Keller novels followed, as well as a stand-alone, BREAKING COVER.

In 2010, Rhoades looked at the world of e-publishing after seeing the success several friends were having with it. "Hey, he said, "how hard..." --well, you get the idea. After a couple of missteps, his backlist is now available for Kindle, as well as his e-published novels STORM SURGE, LAWYERS GUNS AND MONEY, and GALLOWS POLE. His latest novel, MONSTER: NIGHTRIDER'S VENGEANCE, was written under the pen name J.D. Nixx, and his available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Nightriders-Vengeance-ebook/dp/B007Z8M6PM

Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage, North Carolina, where he does not usually refer to himself in the third person.