Risk Takers

The Devan McNally Files #1.5 (Side Baiting)

by Dean Wesley Smith (Editor), Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Anthea Sharp

Money, business, sports, love: All involve risk—and skill. The skilled authors in this volume masterfully exhibit both. Buckle in while a locomotive engineer uses magic in a race to avoid extinction, a game developer must outmaneuver an alien for Earth’s fate, and an exterminator risks everything to go after some really big rats. Crossing genre lines through science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical, and mainstream, these adrenaline-pumping stories about taking risks offer nothing but reward.

“… fans of the unconventional will be well satisfied.”
—Publishers Weekly on Fiction River: Pulse Pounders

“Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives is a great choice for anyone who loves it when genres are swirled together. It’s nominally more heavily influenced by mystery conventions and tropes, but the science fiction and fantasy elements in it are almost as strong.”
—Long and Short Reviews on Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives

Table of Contents
“Play the Man” by Dan C. Duval
“The F Factor” by Chrissy Wissler
“No Free Lunch” by Anthea Sharp
“Winning the Ocean Pearl” by T. D. Edge
“China Moll” by Cindie Geddes
“A Tale of Good Whiskey, Bad Coffee, and One Devious Woman” by Annie Reed
“Bucking the Tiger” by John Helfers & Kerrie Hughes
“The Messiah Business” by Robert T. Jeschonek
“Muggins Rules” by Russ Crossley
“Cost and Conscience” by Christy Fifield
“Side Baiting” by Phaedra Weldon
“Gambler’s Fallacy” by Brigid Collins
“The Man Who Decided” by Dean Wesley Smith
“Rats” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Driving the Line” by Dan C. Duval
“Side Bet” by Lee Allred

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 30, 2015

About the author

Pen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.

With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.

Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.

Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.