Fireflash: a Matt Tanner Thriller

by Robert McNeill

• Tanner, a newly mustered-out army ranger, hitchhiking home…
• Bridger, a man with knowledge of a high-level conspiracy, who offers him a lift…
• Two contract killers, who pursue Tanner and Bridger, with intent to eliminate…

So begins Fireflash, a breathtaking action thriller which introduces Matt Tanner, an ex-army ranger caught in the middle of an astonishing intrigue.

For Bridger is the guardian of something the hunters are desperate to get hold of, a flash-drive containing evidence of a planned act of sedition — a plan to assassinate the president.

The action moves to Las Cruces, where Tanner, Bridger and his young colleague, Aileen Mason, find themselves targeted by a corrupt arm of the law.

They escape, only to see the tension increase when a professional hitman and his crew and brought in to bring about their demise.

There is only one way to foil the assassins’ plans, but is Tanner able to overcome all obstacles… and achieve it in time?

A rollercoaster of twists and turns, set amongst the panorama of the world’s most magnificent backdrop — the Grand Canyon. FIREFLASH is a powerful thriller from start to finish.

175 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2025

About the author

Robert McNeill was born Edinburgh, Scotland. He took up freelance journalism in 1990, after spending many years in direct sales. His feature articles have appeared in many publications worldwide. He has also written several westerns and WWII novels.

Since 2018, however, Robert, an avid reader of crime fiction (and a particular admirer of the works of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter James and Lawrence Block) has concentrated on his own police procedural crime series featuring Edinburgh detective Jack Knox.

There are currently seven books in the series: THE INNOCENT AND THE DEAD, MURDER AT FLOOD TIDE, DEAD OF NIGHT, NOUGHTS AND CROSSES, A VIEW TO MURDER, CONFESSION TO MURDER AND DON'T CRY DARLING.

‘As a native of Edinburgh, I’m particularly interested in the history of the city as a setting for crime,’ Robert says. ‘In the late eighteenth century, well-heeled citizenry of the medieval Old Town began moving across the Nor Loch (the area where Princes Street Gardens is now situated) to the Georgian New Town, where they lived in comparative splendour,’ he adds.

‘A villain who took advantage of these changes was Deacon William Brodie, a cabinet-maker and much-respected city councillor by day, who maintained a secret life as a housebreaker by night. Brodie was caught stealing from one of those elegant new mansions and hanged at the Old Tolbooth on the city’s High Street in October, 1788.

‘Brodie was also the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde,’ Robert explains. ‘And a character with traits not dissimilar to the people Knox runs into in his investigations.’