Martin Roy Hill is the December Author of the Month. He will speak at Central Library's Mary Hollis Clark Conference Center (1st Floor). Mr Hill's lecture title is History’s Biggest Heist (and Why Nobody Even Investigated It): The True Events that Inspired Martin Roy Hill’s Award-Winning Thriller, The Butcher’s Bill. Martin Roy Hill is the author of the Linus Schag, NCIS, thrillers, the Peter Brandt thrillers, DUTY: Suspense and Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, a collection of new and previously published short stories, and EDEN: A Sci-Fi Novella. His latest Linus Schag thriller, The Butcher’s Bill, was named the Best Mystery/Suspense Novel of 2017 by the Best Independent Book Awards, and received the 2017 Clue Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Novel from the Chanticleer International Book Awards, as well as the 2018 Silver Medal for Thrillers from the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards.

About the book: In Iraq, a shipment of $9 billion in cash goes missing. Each effort to find it ends in death. In Southern California, a mercenary’s murder, a severed head, and a bloody hand-written message spark a massive manhunt. The man connecting these two events is William Butcher, aka The Butcher. Those who stole the money want him dead. The cops want him for murder. Butcher’s only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag. Schag walks a thin line between doing his job or betraying his friend. Working from opposite ends, Schag and Butcher peel back the layers of conspiracy, revealing a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.