The bullet had left the gun. One-hundred fifty-eight grains of steel-jacketed lead hurtled toward the center of the Cody Howard's chest at a speed designed to stop a moving target at a hundred yards in a fraction of a second. But as he stood only fifteen feet from the muzzle of the gun, the bullet was on track to strike its target in less time than it took to blink.He didn't blink, but he did see the bullet - a black hole in the center of a sun that was the muzzle flash. It didn't take any time for his mind to register what his eyes saw, and to understand the future it dictated. He shouldn't have even had time to think "good-bye" but he did. Because of the flash of blue...the same color as Deki-san's shirt.
In The Omega Crystal, Geoff Lance was the top-rated television anchor in Sacramento, but he was getting weary of the struggle with his bosses over their dumbing down of the news. His life took a sudden turn when he met an aging French physicist who told him he had a solution to the energy crisis. But then the man died under mysterious circumstances. At his funeral, Geoff met his daughter, Ariane Chevasse, a brilliant woman working in international intelligence. The two collaborated to expose a conspiracy by the oil importers.In New Moves, Geoff and Ariane had moved to the Monterey Peninsula, where Ariane had made an important new friend while training in aikido. The two women unwittingly found themselves caught up in the middle of a conflict between federal law enforcement and a Mexican drug cartel. Geoff's father, through his own sources, learned of the conflict and flew out to Monterey to make sure that his son and Ariane weren't in danger. At the same time, Ariane and her new friend were going through new aikido moves, and Geoff was conducting a powerful interview with his father to try to move past rocky issues between them.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most important fictional characters in all of literature, the world around. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a giant of thought whose intellectual range extended well beyond his role as a detective.As a member for thirty years of the Diogenes Club of Carmel-by-the-Sea, a Sherlockian society, I have contributed a number of papers to our bi-monthly black tie dinner meetings. (I have also created the brilliant new consulting detective, Francie LeVillard, and have published seven volumes of her cases.)But back to the "Musings on Sherlock Holmes." Included in these pages are four essays and two performances, all of which were delivered before the Diogenes Club. There is a lot of Holmesian detail to satisfy the obsessive afficionado, but much that does not require familiarity with what Doyle wrote.
Three new stories about Francie LeVillard, the finest consulting detective since Sherlock Holmes. In "The Return of Francois Le Villard" she connects historically with her great-grandfather who actually worked with Holmes. In "Justice Above the Law" she deals with a client who loses patience with the legal system. And in "Reporter in Gotham" she recounts her early days as a television news reporter in New York City.
With all the money we spend on military preparedness, our military wasn't prepared for this. Twelve alien spaceships took up positions over the United States. It was a silent alarm. When there were no communications from the aliens, the Pentagon sent up four fighter jets to check them out. The fighters disappeared off the radar screens. Deeming that an act of war, they sent 50 nuclear missiles against the spaceships. They too were gone without a trace.Then, unbeknownst to the rest of the country, four every-day Americans were beamed up to meet with the alien commander and his deputy. They learned the frightening truth about what was going to happen to the Earth if....it was a very big if. In fact, if's don't get any bigger.
Francie LeVillard is the finest consulting detective since Sherlock Holmes. In this, the ninth volume of her case stories, In "The Storage Locker", her friend overhears a strange conversation in a neighboring storage unit that could be criminal. In "Fixing Poor Grades", the body of a local college professor is found floating in Lake El Estero. "Unjustice" is about a man unfairly arrested who comes to Francie to see about the system being changed. And in "The Dream", a friend who doesn't believe in past lives has an experience that seems to defy explanation.
In Volume X of The Francie LeVillard Mysteries, the world's finest consulting detective since Sherlock Holmes applies her brilliance and her powerful intuition to the solving of four fascinating cases. But brains aren't enough when she's up against killers, and Francie has to put her life on the line.- Silencer Night...A tourist trips over a body on the sidewalk in front of a landmark Carmel hotel.- All the World's a Stage...For cheesy politics, contract murder, revenge, and a fed sting.- An End to Evil...A dying scientist has found a way to rid the world of rapists and murderers.- Love Gone Mad...What can be done in the name of love? Surely there are limits...aren't there?
While more than 40 Francie LeVillard Mysteries have been published since 2013, she was actually born from the pen in 1986. Back then she lived in Mill Valley in a world without cellphones and wifi. Now seven of her original cases - plus a bemusing short story - are in print for your elucidation and reading pleasure.
You think what you've about the hospitals and covid is terrible, in fact the truth is a lot worse. Nurse Lucy Balfour was ready to quit. But first her partner, journalist David Skye, goes undercover at her hospital to report on the chaos and confusion, the E-R egos, the slave nurses, the unvaccinated patients and the ice trucks full of bodies dead and alive.
Say It Write, which follows the similarly formatted Selected Writings, which was published several years ago. In the following pages are twenty pieces of prose, poetry, stage scripts, a letter to the editor, and segments from four books that, though not book length in their own write (sic) were still worth the paper they are printed on.
I've long thought that women were more interesting than men. Men always seemed so transparent, while women were, for the most part, unfathomable. As I grew older I realized that I was looking through the wrong lens. So instead of looking, I started seeing...and wonderful new stories grew before me. Vive la diff rence A veteran journalist, I put my perspective to work. I interviewed seven women who live here on the Central Coast of California. They have lived very different lives but all share this in common: They are women of beautiful character.
