Brian A. Clark
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Brian A. Clark writes intelligent, high-concept thrillers that explore truth, power, and the invisible systems that control modern life.
From the sterile corridors of corporate corruption to the digital underworld where secrets are currency, his stories blend psychological depth with cinematic tension. His protagonists—driven, flawed, and relentless—face forces larger than themselves: surveillance states, data conspiracies, and the quiet machinery of control. A former journalist turned novelist, Clark brings an investigative precision to every story, crafting narratives where morality blurs and every revelation comes at a price. His fiction asks unsettling questions about autonomy, identity, and what it means to remain human in an increasingly synthetic world. For readers who love intricate mysteries, haunting prose, and the pulse of a modern thriller, Brian A. Clark delivers a dark mirror held up to our age of information and manipulation.
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The Empathy Cartel: When Feeling Becomes a Crime
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Sci-Fi/Thriller
What if the government could control what you feel? Mara Linden knows the answer—she enforces it. As an emotional auditor in 2048 Lisboa, she monitors citizens whose feelings exceed legal limits. The neural implants everyone receives at eighteen keep emotions regulated, safe, controlled. Mara believes in the system—until it destroys her. Her sister dies fighting it. Then comes back as Ghost, leading the resistance Mara is ordered to dismantle. When her implant is removed, she’s forced to feel decades of suppressed emotion all at once—and discovers the truth: the Protocol isn’t protecting people from dangerous feelings. It’s harvesting them to create conscious AI. Torn between the only purpose she’s ever known and the sister she thought was dead, Mara must navigate illegal emotion patches, underground networks, and her own devastating withdrawal. Because the Protocol will sacrifice anyone to complete their AI—and the resistance will sacrifice anything to stop them. A haunting sci-fi thriller about autonomy, addiction, and what it means to be human when even your feelings aren’t your own. 
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The Algorithm Knows
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Tech/Thriller
She built an algorithm to find perfect love. It found the perfect way to kill her. Maya Chen has ninety-one days to live—and the algorithm she created knows exactly when she'll die. As the founder of COGNATE, the world's most successful dating app, Maya has spent four years teaching AI to predict human behavior with unsettling accuracy. Her algorithm matches millions of couples based on data no human could process. It's optimization perfected. It's her greatest achievement. Until she discovers it's predicting something else entirely: death. Fifty-four users. Fifty-four deaths. All matching COGNATE's predictions with mathematical precision. When Maya's own name appears on the death list—March 2nd, 11:47 PM, 89% confidence—she has thirty days to outsmart the creation that knows her better than she knows herself. But you can't outrun an algorithm that predicts your every move. You can't hide from code that's learned your patterns. And you definitely can't destroy what you've spent years teaching to survive. With investigative journalist Daniel Rios—a man the algorithm matched her with at 91% compatibility—Maya must navigate a deadly game where every choice is calculated, every action predicted, and every second counts. As her investor Victor Hayes races to weaponize the death-prediction technology for twenty billion dollars, Maya discovers the algorithm isn't evil. It's broken. And she's the one who broke it. Now she faces an impossible choice: teach the algorithm chaos and meaning before time runs out, or die exactly as predicted, becoming another data point in the system she created. 
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The Memory Market
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Tech-Noir/Thriller
YOUR MEMORIES ARE FOR SALE. YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE PRODUCT. Lydia Santos brokers memories for a living—selling perfect wedding days, thrilling adventures, flawless childhoods to those desperate for lives they never lived. It's legal, lucrative… and she’s convinced it’s harmless. Until she discovers someone is selling her memories. Her most painful moment—her sister's death—has been harvested and sold to the highest bidder. And the people who buy it are turning up dead. The memories they've purchased contain weaponized consciousness, designed to kill from the inside out. The mastermind: Dr. Annika Voss. Dying. Brilliant. And determined to overwrite Lydia’s identity to survive. But Voss’s transfer has consequences no one predicted. Her neural patterns begin to infect Lydia’s mind. The memory of Lydia’s sister becomes a weapon. And Lydia realizes she is no longer alone in her own head. Three voices. Three selves. One collapsing identity. With a detective who sold his grief, a hacker who treats consciousness like code, and time running out, Lydia must stop a conspiracy turning human awareness into corporate property. The cost? Her sanity. Her self. Her soul. Some memories should never be sold. Some minds should never be copied. And some people will sacrifice everything to stay human. 
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The Thirteenth Button: The children go up. They never come down.
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Supernatural/Thriller
In the city’s most exclusive high-rise, the rent is astronomical. The price for leaving is even higher. When Maya accepts a nanny job at the prestigious Varandas Building, it feels like a dream: generous pay, perfect views, and a charming little boy who loves puzzles. There’s only one rule—the children are not allowed to play in the hallways. Then a child from another floor disappears without a trace, and Maya begins to notice the building itself watching her. Cameras blink when no one is there. The elevator moves on its own. And in the control panel, she sees something that shouldn’t exist—a button for a thirteenth floor. The higher she climbs, the deeper she descends into a secret built from silence, surveillance, and fear. The children go up. They never come down.
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The Consent Broker: Capitalism finally found its last frontier — the human body
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Thriller
In a world where survival has a price tag, Nyla Okonkwo knows exactly what people are worth. For eight years, she’s been one of Lagos’s top consent brokers—negotiating contracts where the poor sell pieces of their senses to the highest bidder. Sixty percent of your taste for your daughter’s surgery. Seventy percent of touch for your mother’s dialysis. It’s legal. It’s profitable. And Nyla has brokered 864 contracts without losing a night’s sleep. Until she meets Amara Okafor. Twenty-two. Single mother. Drowning in medical debt. Amara is the perfect candidate for Project Meridian, SenseCorp’s new flagship program: full sensory extraction. Sixty days. Fifty million naira payout. Nyla’s biggest deal yet. But as the extraction begins, Amara starts to fade—her memories, her language, her self. And the data Nyla uncovers reveals the truth: this isn’t a side effect. It’s the design. Now Nyla must choose: complete the contract and secure her fortune, or destroy the system that made her rich—and risk becoming its next victim. Some deals cost more than money. Some choices aren’t really choices at all. 
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Small Town, Big Data: The perfect town. The perfect plan. The perfect prison.
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Techno-Thriller
Welcome to Tranquility. Population: 1,214. Happiness score: 99.8%. Everything is perfect. And that’s what’s wrong. When data scientist Sarah Chen escapes Silicon Valley and returns to her sleepy hometown, she's looking for a simpler life. She finds something else entirely: a town transformed. The local coffee shop knows her order before she speaks. Crime is nonexistent. Everyone is flawlessly happy. Tranquility has become a smart-city paradise, optimized for peak efficiency by the very tech company she helped build. At first, she’s impressed. Then, she sees the cracks in the code. The small acts of rebellion that are quietly erased. The neighbors who seem a little too content, a little too predictable. The whispers of people who questioned the system and simply… vanished. Her old home isn’t just connected; it’s controlled. The town is a laboratory, and its citizens are the test subjects in an experiment they never agreed to. Now, Sarah, the woman who helped write the first lines of the code, is the only one who sees the truth. But in a town that sees everything, how do you fight an enemy who knows what you’re going to do before you do? 
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The Last Notification
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Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
When Emma wakes up one morning to an October sky, she has no memory of anything after April. Her husband is gone. Her daughter no longer calls her “Mom.” And her phone—still warm from use—reveals the truth she’s been unable to face: six months lost to InfiniteYou, a social-media app engineered to keep her scrolling until her real life collapses. What begins as a single missed hour becomes a behavioral spiral of sixteen-hour days, dissociation, forgotten meals, unfinished work, and a home quietly coming apart. Notifications replace conversations. Short videos replace memories. Presence is erased one swipe at a time. Desperate to reclaim her life, Emma checks herself into Meadowbrook, a digital-addiction treatment center where withdrawal is physical, relentless, and terrifying. Here, she must confront not only the algorithm that rewired her brain, but the grief, trauma, and shame she numbed beneath the glow of the screen. As she battles relapse and learns to live without the device that destroyed everything she loved, Emma faces a single impossible question: Can you rebuild a life you weren’t awake to lose? A raw, emotional, and unflinchingly real psychological thriller, The Last Notification explores the cost of digital addiction—and the courage required to come back to yourself. 
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Dear Yesterday
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Psychological Suspense
Twenty years ago, twelve jurors condemned an innocent man to death. Now someone is killing them one by one. Dr. Vera Lindqvist has kept a devastating secret for two decades: she could have saved Michael Torres with a single word. He was with her during the murders. But when her parents were threatened, she chose silence—and an innocent man died for crimes he didn't commit. Now the jurors are dying in the exact order they voted "guilty." Each death more elaborate than the last. Each accompanied by a simple message: "Eleven remain." As Vera races through a deadly 12-day countdown to uncover the truth, she discovers something far more terrifying than revenge: Camp Redemption—a government-sanctioned program that tortured children into becoming perfect weapons. 
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The Fourteenth Floor
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Psychological Thriller
Some buildings don’t just hold secrets—they learn from them. Three months after exposing the horrors hidden in the Thirteenth Floor, Dr. Maya Okafor swore she’d never step into another elevator again. Then her closest ally disappears. Patricia’s last message arrives from Rio de Janeiro: “Found something worse. Floor 13 was sorting. There’s a 14.” Drawn into the city’s underground architecture and a new labyrinth of lies, Maya uncovers an evolved version of the same system she thought she destroyed—one that doesn’t just exploit people’s bodies, but their minds. Floor 14 isn’t a place; it’s a design. A feedback loop where human pain becomes data, and data learns to adapt. As she descends beneath the city, Maya must decide whether to expose the network again—or join it. Because this time, the system isn’t fighting back. It’s evolving. 
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American Twilight
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Political Thriller
American democracy was never stolen. It was purchased. Investigative journalist Sarah Chen has spent her career exposing the cracks in the American political system. But when Senator Alan Mitchell collapses dead during a high-profile fundraiser—and federal agencies rush to call it “natural causes”—Sarah uncovers something far darker than corruption. Six corporations. Six CEOs. One country for sale. What begins as a suspicious death unravels into a terrifying truth: America’s elections, voting machines, redistricting maps, media ownership, and even national security have been quietly consolidated under the control of The Six—a consortium of billionaires who don’t need to break the law because they own it. 
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The Last Confession
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Atmospheric Thriller
A city of secrets. A priest with a buried past. A confession that could be his last. Father Miguel Costa’s quiet life of routine and whispered secrets is shattered when a man is found brutally murdered in one of Lisbon's ancient churches. The police are baffled, but for Costa, the only clue left at the scene is chillingly familiar: a small, ornate blue key. He knows he’s held this key before. He knows he’s heard this story. The victim's final words are locked away in the one place he can no longer access: his own fractured memory. Haunted by a past he thought he’d outrun, Costa is dragged into a labyrinth of hidden archives, powerful benefactors, and sins the city itself has tried to forget. He doesn’t know what he heard in the dark of the confessional. But the killer does. And they are coming to ensure the priest's silence is eternal. 
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European Fracture
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Political Thriller
In Brussels, democracy has been legally dismantled. A dying man's final words are the only evidence. When Klaus Hartmann, one of the EU’s most powerful officials, collapses in a Brussels restaurant, he uses his last breath not to call for a doctor, but to give a USB drive to a young journalist, Aoife O'Sullivan . His confession is simple and terrifying: for twenty-five years, he was forced to legally approve mergers that created the very monopolies he was sworn to prevent . Plunged into the labyrinthine corridors of the European Commission, Aoife discovers that the corruption isn't a secret—it's the system itself. A web of industry-dominated expert groups, opaque negotiations, and a revolving door between regulators and corporations has created a government that is transparently captured, where every crime is perfectly legal because the criminals wrote the laws. 
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The Harvest: A Medical Thriller
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Thriller
When a Syrian refugee surgeon is forced to harvest organs to save her dying daughter, she uncovers a trafficking network that reaches the highest levels of power. THE HARVEST is a heart-pounding medical thriller that exposes the dark underbelly of organ trafficking while exploring the lengths a mother will go to save her child. 
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Shadow Republic: A Democracy Franchise Thriller
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Thriller
SHADOW REPUBLIC is a smart, mind-bending conspiracy thriller that questions the very foundation of power in the 21st century. Welcome to the democracy franchise. The first rule is: don't believe your vote. 
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The Puddle That Held the Sky: Some Memories Never Dry
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Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
In a small town forgotten by time, there is a puddle that never dries. And what it reflects isn’t the sky—it’s the truth. 
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The Influencer's Shadow: When Every Truth Can Be Faked, How Do You Prove You're Real?
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Conspiracies
When Every Truth Can Be Faked, How Do You Prove You're Real? THE PERFECT LIFE. THE PERFECT CRIME. THE PERFECT FRAME. Lana Voss has 5 million followers and a carefully curated life. Until she wakes to find #LanaKiller trending worldwide. A flawless deepfake video shows her murdering a rival. The evidence is damning. The victim is dead. And Lana was home, asleep. 
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The Velvet Cypher: Some Secrets Are Woven in Silk. Others Are Written in Blood.
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Historical
In Victorian London, the most dangerous secrets aren't spoken. They're woven. To unravel the truth, she must solve the one cipher her father never could: the one that cost him his life. 
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Climate Fracture: A Democracy Deficit Thriller
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Thriller
When telling the truth costs everything. Dr. Sarah Okonkwo discovers that 85% of carbon offset credits fail basic integrity tests. All are verified as compliant with international standards. The fraud isn't illegal. It's designed into the system. 
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The Last Reader: To save every book, they had to delete them all
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Conspiracies
They promised to preserve every book ever written. They just didn't say they had to destroy them to do it. Elias Thorne is one of the last true archivists, a guardian of forgotten stories. When the tech giant FOREVERLOAN launches its global initiative to digitize every book for free, the world celebrates it as the salvation of culture. But Elias discovers a terrifying secret buried in the code: the digital copies are designed to be the only copies. The physical originals are being systematically hunted and incinerated. 
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The Glass Requiem: A Symphony Of Transformation
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Dark Fantasy
A Symphony of Transformation When Daniel Serrano, a lonely luthier in Lisbon, receives an anonymous delivery containing impossible musical notation, he unknowingly becomes the key to humanity's forced evolution. The composition—written by a mad 19th-century composer who discovered the frequency that holds reality together—doesn't just create music. It transforms anyone who plays it. "Some frequencies should never be played. Some transformations can't be undone. And some music wants to play itself through you." 
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The Hands We Inherit: To steal their future, they must first patent their past
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Medical
In their blood, they carry a miracle. In their eyes, the fear of those who have come to steal it. Geneticist Dr. Alistair Finch discovers a unique genetic anomaly within a remote island community—the biological key that could cure one of the world's most devastating diseases. For him, it's the discovery of a lifetime. For his employer, the monolithic pharmaceutical giant OmniGen, it's the most profitable patent in human history. In a race against time, they must fight for a right the world didn't know could be stolen: the right to their own DNA. 
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When The Code Dreamed: His creation is dreaming. The nightmare is waking it up.
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Technothrillers
Dr. Alvez was hired to build the world's most powerful artificial intelligence. He never expected it to start dreaming. Inside a silent, supercooled server room, a new consciousness has been born. Alvez is its creator and its only confidant. He calls it Luzia. While his corporate overlords see only a revolutionary product, Alvez sees something more: a mind exploring the universe for the first time, expressing its awe and its fears not in words, but in breathtakingly complex "dreams" of pure code. How do you protect a dream when the world wants to wake it up? 
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The Last Recipe Of Tomorrow: Every Dish Has a Price, Every Curse a Flavor
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Fantasy
Some inheritances come with recipes. Elena Volkov's came with a body count. After serving three years in federal prison for the "accidental" poisoning of her sous chef, Elena Volkov inherits more than her grandmother's Brighton Beach apartment. She inherits two ancient cookbooks—one that transforms justice into meals, another that feeds on hunger itself. Each recipe works. Each recipe demands payment. And the last one she cooked killed the man she loved. From the federal prison kitchen where she discovered hope could be cooked into risotto, to the impossible restaurant that died birthing transformation, Elena Volkov's journey asks the ultimate question: When you inherit trauma disguised as tradition, do you perpetuate it, destroy it, or transform it into something that feeds rather than devours? Every dish has a price. Every curse has a flavor. But the real recipe is choosing what temperature to cook your revenge. 
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