Books

THE FIRST STONE

Private eye Felix Strange doesn’t work homicide cases. He saw enough dead bodies fighting in Iran, a war that left him with a crippling disease that has no name and no cure. So when Strange is summoned to a Manhattan hotel room to investigate the dead body of America’s most-loved preacher, he’d rather not get involved. Strange has a week to find the killer, and even less time to get the black-market medicine he needs to stay alive. In an America where biblical prophecy is foreign policy, Strange knows that his hiring is no accident. He can’t see all the angles, and he knows he’s being watched. In a race against time Strange must face religious police, organized crime and a dame with very particular ideas, while uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the very heart of his newly fundamentalist nation.

THE RAPTURE (Coming in Spring 2010)

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
-1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, King James Bible

Wind had caught the burning remains and scattered it on the air. A black rain fell on us, a toxic mix of incinerated wood, drywall and human flesh. I had seen the movie too many times: in Tehran and twice before in New York. I caught a glimpse of the burning shred of an Adamson memorial poster – the Revivalist graffiti that had gone up all over town – before it was consumed.
“Move it,” the cop said, pointing in the direction of 6th Avenue. Tape was already stretched along the length of the street. Fire crews were putting on suits and air tanks, while SWAT stood by in case the building made a run for it. When I didn’t budge, his nightstick found its way into his hand.
“Move, one way of the other.” The cop led my body towards the tape, but I kept my head where it was. The smoke had completely covered the sliver of sky that had been visible between the two blocks, plunging the afternoon into an unaccustomed darkness.
I stared at the burning building, and felt something new and terrible on the move.

THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (Coming in Spring, 2011, God help me)

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
- 2 Timothy 4:3-4

My wake-up call was a bucket of water imported from the South Pole. I was in a room about twenty feet square, judging by the way my coughing bounced off the walls. I was shackled to an aluminum chair that was bolted to the floor. My bare feet recoiled from icy concrete floor, but I had nowhere warmer to put them. It was dark except for a single light pointed at my face, and quiet as the grave.
“You can call me Control,” a voice from behind the light said.
“May,” I corrected. “I can call you sir, ma’am or my great aunt Frieda. Whether I call you control is my decision.”
An open hand came from the darkness and said hello to my face.
“Physical violence already?” I said. “You’re either impatient or stupid, which I guess is the same thing.”
“I was warned you’d be a handful.”
Another hand – closed this time – came out of the darkness, and it was back to black.