Showing results by author "Riano McFarland" in All Categories

The Great Vegas Escape chronicles the bizarre, often bewildering series of events that accompanied my move from Sin City to Music City. At times humorous, at others mysterious and downright terrifying, this story explores the emotional and logistical chaos of uprooting a life deeply rooted in a city that doesn’t let go easily.

No one knew where they came from or how long they had existed. Their origins were as enigmatic as their purpose—silent sentinels in the wilderness, waiting. Yet one truth remained unshaken: no one gazed into their depths and walked away unchanged. Long-buried secrets surfaced. Forgotten transgressions clawed their way into the light, merciless in their clarity. The crater did not show what was wanted—it showed what was needed.

When a district marshal is trampled while in pursuit of the band of cunning outlaws, a new lawman is called in to shut the gang down. His name was Oliver Blackstone, and unlike the faint-hearted posses that preceded him, Marshal Blackstone never gives up.

Laro Basar is not human. He looks like one—mostly—but the resemblance ends there. He feels no empathy, no hesitation, and no moral weight. He moves through the world with the unstoppable certainty of a natural disaster, acting on impulse and instinct alone.

In a world where justice is outsourced and morality is measured in market value, OPUS watches from the shadows—an elite organization tasked with resetting those who slip through the cracks of conventional law. When Joseph Melrose, a beloved family man, is left to die on a desolate road, the evidence points not to the driver but to the enigmatic Selena Destine. Known in elite circles as the “Snake Doctor,” Selena’s surgical brilliance has saved billion-dollar lives, but her indifference to Melrose’s suffering reveals a chilling calculus: some lives simply aren’t worth stopping for.

Most of the successful private prospectors who’d struck it rich during the California and Nevada gold rushes during the mid- to late-1800s, had journeyed westward with a specific plan from which they never deviated. Upon achieving their pre-defined goals, they packed up and returned to their original homes in distant regions of the United States. There were also plenty of others, who’d been unable to pull the plug after striking it rich, believing their lucky streak to be a never-ending one.

With each new recipient, the artifact expands its knowledge while passing the sum of its experiences on to them. Although its mission is quite specific, its very existence is the closely guarded secret of a society sworn to recover it—a task which proves to be far more challenging than they could ever have suspected.

Following 10 years of service under four different presidents, the legend of Marshal Oliver Blackstone has grown far beyond his district headquarters in Santa Fe. Throughout the new US territories between Texas and California, law-abiding citizens respect him, while outlaws and wayward fugitives are wise to avoid coming face-to-face with him. After drawing the ire of a wealthy Russian immigrant, he discovers that a $100,000 bounty has been placed on his head, collectible by the first gunman able to take down the marshal and claim it.

As Marshal Lofton would soon discover, not only was his new deputy deadly accurate, but he was also unbelievably fast, and with the ruthless Scorpion Hill Gang operating in Marshal Lofton's district, Oliver's skills would be tested time and again. Although the citizens of Texas revered him as a guardian angel, the members of the outlaw gang would come to fear him as the Grim Reaper. But, unlike most gunslingers, Oliver's reputation spread slowly, because by the time an outlaw learned his name, they were already dead.

Over 70 percent of Earth is covered in water, yet over 80 percent of that water remains unexplored. There are currently over 10 billion people on Earth, but terrestrial humans are only aware of those who live on land. The other three billion humans took a decidedly different evolutionary path, adapting to live in the largest combined area on the planet–the water.

After two years serving as a US marshal, policing the country’s newest and largest district, Oliver Blackstone’s reputation as a lawman was stellar, and those who’d originally doubted his ability to get the job done were now squarely in his corner.

For nine years, Calvin Thorne was an elite agent for an international crime-fighting agency known as O.P.U.S. (Organization for the Pursuit of Untouchable Syndicates). After being betrayed by his superiors and tricked into assassinating an innocent man, he resigns and apparently vanishes from the face of the earth. Two years later, O.P.U.S. is attempting to erase the connections tying the agency to the illegally contracted murder, and the only agent who knows what really happened is Calvin Thorne.

In 1955, the Soviet Union introduced the Moscow Water Dog in a canine show to great acclaim. However, in real world situations, they fell far short of the expectations Russian cynologists had set for them, and in 1979, the Moscow Water Dog project was shut down. Supposedly the last of the breed died out in 1990, but did they?

In the pursuit of justice, there was nowhere Marshal Oliver Blackstone wouldn’t go to apprehend a fugitive. Whether that meant facing the forces of nature or the evils of men, once he was on your trail, there was no getting rid of him. But what happens when that fugitive isn’t just another nameless outlaw? What if he’s a colleague and a friend whose reasoning is understandable, although flawed?

When a United States marshal retires their badge and hangs up their gun, more often than not, their only remaining desire is to ride off into a distant horizon and live out the remainder of their lives in peace and solitude. When Oliver Blackstone sailed from Galveston, Texas, to Boston, Massachusetts, it was also his deepest wish. After bringing an untold number of the Western Frontier's most dangerous criminals to justice and sending more than 100 of them to face judgment in the hereafter, he'd been dubbed "The Deadliest Man Alive" by renowned frontier journalist J.C. Cavanaugh.

Following his abduction from a remote campsite, Daniel Wells escapes his captor and flees into the night. At six years old, he is suddenly cast into a world where nothing is familiar and everything in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, from mountain lions and bears to hungry packs of wolves, views him as easy prey.

Yasper Prentice is exhausted. He hasn’t slept for days because whenever he closes his eyes, the dreams return. However, unlike most people, all of Yasper’s dreams are nightmares. They are the yarn from which terror is woven, and with each passing night, they become increasingly more vivid. The most terrifying thing about them is that the tragedies he sees are real and destined to happen unless he acts to prevent them.

Ophelia Midland and Constance Hargraves were from entirely different worlds... Until they weren’t anymore. Under the heady influence of author Adonis Taft, these two women become inextricably connected in a reality where hedonistic boundaries are crossed along the fluid lines of fact and fiction.

Tarah believes that every house has a destiny and that only those whose destinies align with a house are meant to live there. According to Tarah's mysterious rideshare driver, when it comes to Thibodaux Estate, no one was meant to live there, and he refuses to even leave his vehicle after dropping her off—not even to open the car door. Indeed, he will not even speak the name of the estate, claiming that "when you call something by its name, either on this side of reality or another, it tends to listen."

The thing is…when your intention is to remain below the radar, an ever-expanding reputation is the last thing anyone needs, and soon, old problems and long-forgotten adversaries begin to resurface. Despite his reluctance to revisit the ghosts of his past, sometimes in order to move forward, you have to go back again. In doing so, Malcolm realizes that a few of the broken things requiring his attention…aren’t things at all.