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Mark Pawlosky

1st place award in the 2023 Feathered Quill Book Awards, Mystery/Suspense category

When a top secret and powerful US surveillance technology is stolen and offered for sale on the black market, an exiled reporter races to expose the theft and untangle the plot—before the story is spiked, and he is silenced for good. 

Coming off a successful investigation into a major banking scandal, Newshound reporter Nik Byron arrives in Washington, DC, with high hopes for his career. But a disruptive corporate merger and a vengeful boss quickly dash his plans. Relegated to scut work and the graveyard shift, Nik’s career and emotions are in a tailspin. That is, until a late-night explosion levels a high-tech office park—home to some of the nation’s top clandestine programs—and provides Nik with an opportunity to reverse his fortunes. As Nik tries to unravel the mystery at the heart of the explosion, he suddenly finds himself confronting domestic terrorists, rogue American and Chinese spies, mercenaries, and a brilliant but temperamental computer expert. 

With the help of a small team of colleagues and his new girlfriend, Samantha Whyte—the chief investigator for the Northern Virginia Sheriff’s Department, who has her own secrets to conceal—Nik follows a bloody trail of bodies from DC to the upper Midwest. But as word gets out that what he has dug up threatens to expose the theft of highly sensitive US technology, now being sold to terrorists and repressive regimes, new enemies close in. How far is Nik willing to go for a story, and how much is he willing to risk to reveal the truth?

Girl Friday Books

A Nik Byron Investigation

Hack: A Nik Byron Investigation

2024 Feathered Quill Book Award winner, Mystery/Suspense category

In the tradition of the best legal and political thrillers, Friendly Fire is an explosive tale of greed, revenge, treason, and murder. 

When Geoffrey Tate, one of the world’s richest individuals and the CEO of Yukon, the country’s preeminent artificial intelligence company, is shot and killed by his young trophy wife, it’s going to grab headlines. And seasoned Newshound reporter Nik Byron intends to be the one generating them. But Nik’s investigation quickly leads him down a treacherous path he didn’t foresee. 

The sensational trial that follows Tate’s death threatens to derail Bullwhip—the military’s next generation of AI-inspired war machines—and scramble the fortunes of political heavyweights and Pentagon brass alike. His journalistic instincts aroused, Nik embarks on an uncertain hunt for the truth that takes him deep into the murky worlds of Washington lobbyists, the military-industrial complex, and the Saudi intelligence apparatus. 

Undermined by a vindictive boss and a jealous rival reporter, Nik turns to trusted Newshound colleagues, Mia Landry and Patrick “Mo” Morgan—as well as a Pentagon whistleblower—to land his story and unravel the mystery surrounding Tate’s death. But in doing so Nik risks alienating Samantha Whyte, the chief investigator for the Northern Virginia County Sheriff’s Department and his lover. Worse still, the story puts him in the sights of a contract killer.

Friendly Fire: A Nik Byron Investigation