S. L. Stoner

Sage Adair and his multi-ethnic companions discover, in their fight for social justice, that what you eat might kill and has. Their effort to stop the poisoning takes the reader on a wild ride alongside the story characters who cross international borders, are shanghaied aboard a doomed whaler, imprisoned dark cellars, and locked inside an insane asylum. Along the way, their mission is eagerly joined by angry doctors, bold women, and noble farmers. This 10th book of the Sage Adair Mystery series is another rousing adventure crafted around actual historical facts and people.

Sage Adair is working on mundane business accounts when an urgent message arrives. Within hours, he and his friends are struggling to comprehend the harsh reality of Indian reservation life. They journey into that strange and dire world to fight greed. Soon things turn ominous when an Indian Service inspector is murdered and time starts running out for a prominent tribal leader. As they and their tribal allies begin uncovering the reservation's secrets, a small boy disappears, taking the biggest secret with him. This ninth Sage Adair story inserts historical facts into a fast-paced adventure mystery unfolding within the deadly confines of an Indian boarding school and reservation.

Progessive History With a Mystery TwistThe eight Sage Adair Mysteries are set in 1902, Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. These adventure stories highlight the positive changes made by that era's progressives at a time when wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a few. One reviewer wrote: "Authentic and well-researched, these historical mysteries show a colorful and corrupt city full of complex and shady characters. Sage Adair is a secret operative who works on behalf of the growing labor movement, pursuing his mission into hobo jungles, lumber camps, seedy saloons and the drawing rooms of the rich. Using authentic historical details, the books show readers a different Portland (OR), a time when houses of prostitution flourished, illegal votes bought judges, and employer opposition to unions took the form of murder." The writing style is simple and spare. The principal characters, who are multi-racial and multi-ethnic, work collaboratively and optimistically.

Progressive History with a Mystery TwistArson, murder, kidnapping and false accusations abound in this seventh book of the Sage Adair series which crafts its early twentieth century stories around actual historical events and people. In Slow Burn what begins as a simple assignment--helping the city's firefighters unionize, catapults Sage into firefighting's front lines and into solving the deeper mystery of who is burning down the city and why..This fast-paced action mystery has been likened to the Wild, Wild West meeting Howard Zinn--where the battle is frequently against that time's 1%.

Cold rain falls endlessly, matching the striking carpenters' gloomy spirits as they walk the line. Their woe becomes terror when thugs thunder out the mill gate atop horses to club and ride down the men as they flee up the muddy road. From this murderous beginning the tale spins out, its action driven forward by the deaths of a carpenter and construction boss, the union president's arrest and the sly machinations of an agent provocateur. Rain falls, streams rage and ravine bridges begin to collapse, as Sage and his team fight to win the strike and exonerate the union's president. Set in the unusually wet fall of 1902, this fictional story reveals how "honest" and dishonest municipal graft shaped the city of Portland, Oregon. In the telling, it exposes more than one precarious and slippery slope, even as it adds yet another memorable character to the mix, one based on the real life man many once called Portland's "ragpicker poet." This is the third offering in the award-winning Sage Adair mystery series.

The year is 1902. John Sagacity Adair, "Sage" to his friends, is a wealthy restaurant proprietor in Portland, Oregon. Beneath the flickering gaslights of his elegant eatery, Mozart's Table, Sage appears urbane and attractively shallow. Yet, he is someone altogether different. Haunted by memories of an impoverished childhood, Sage seeks acceptance by City's financial elite only so that he can expose their secrets. After nearly two years of social maneuvering, he has won an invitation to Arista Dunlop's exclusive soiree. By the end of that night, more questions are raised than he thinks can be answered. What is the secret deal Portland's financiers are so eager to hide? Did his cook's nephew knife the brutal railroad guard? And, why has his Chinese colleague chosen such an inopportune time to make the distracting observations that "a soul needs unbreakedness?" Nothing is turning out as Sage planned. Few know that Sage's past has led him to working as a secret operative of the growing labor movement. Though eager to pursue leads overheard at the soiree, the entreaties of Sage's cook bring a halt to his plans. Her nephew stands accused of murder. While Sage knows that railroad guard deserved to die, he also knows that it is up to him to prove the young boy innocent. Donning the clothes and persona of America's turn-of-the-century itinerant workers, Sage seeks answers to the two seemly disparate questions: Who really killed Clancy Steele? What is the secret deal the financiers are trying to hide? Obscuring his quest like a low-hanging cloud, is Fong's comment about the soul's need for unbreakedness. The ensuing search takes Sage into hobo jungles, rural farms, bordellos and logging camps only to have the answers finally emerge in the drawing room of one of Portland's wealthiest citizens. Timber Beasts is the first book in a series that relies on historical facts for the structure of an exciting, fast-paced story.The novel is based on an actual land fraud scheme and authentically depicts Pacific Northwest's the vibrant ethnic, social and economic milieu at the turn of the twentieth century.

During a blistering 1903 summer, Portland s steam laundry women are working ten hellish hours a day. Exhausted and ill, they demand a nine hour workday. Sage Adair, and his mother, Mae, join their fight until the women begin disappearing. Desperately searching for the missing women, Sage and Mae face grave danger midst suffragettes, prostitutes, social workers, white slavers. arsonists and heartless bosses. Inspired by actual historical events, this is the sixth book in the award-winning Sage Adair mystery series."