DAVID E. MANUEL grew up in Houston, Texas and attended the University of Houston, receiving degrees in history and political science. After college, he worked for a few years in the corporate office of an offshore drilling company. In the mid-1980s he moved to the Washington DC area and took a job with the U.S. Government, where he still works.

David lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Susan C. Sanderson, a free-lance writer, and their English Shepherd, Falco, who, as far... Read More

Richard Paladin works in the shadows eliminating terrorists, spies, and just general riff-raff who threaten the security of the United States. At least, he assumed that's who he'd be killing when he was hired into a secret department of the Environmental Protection Agency. But when one of his "clients" turns out to be a seemingly harmless Missouri housewife, then he's ordered to eliminate the owner of the local northern Virginia bar he frequents, he starts to ask himself a few questions—like what any of this has to do with the U.S. Government's reluctance to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Still, if he can run the gauntlet of spies and goons who keep cropping up unexpectedly, he might just be able to hold onto his job and keep doing what he loves—arranging fatal accidents and suicides. Because Richard Paladin hasn't got a clue what he would do for a living if he loses his job as a government killer.

• Clean Coal Killers: Richard Paladin Series (Volume 2)
• The Killer Trees: Richard Paladin Series #3 (Volume 3)