Selections

Publisher: KOEHLER BOOKS

The plan is all mapped out. Shorty and Libby, his true love, will journey to the gold fields and strike it rich together. But a handsome stranger in a tweed suit shakes the original plan to the core when he persuades Libby to stay in Skagway rather than proceed north to the Klondike. Crushed, Shorty finds another partner (a former classmate) and goes north without her. Libby soon discovers that her new love is a master criminal by the name of Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith. Convinced that Soapy has never killed anyone, Libby’s love holds until a shattering discovery is made. In the meantime, Soapy is killed by vigilantes.

Despite their initial difficulties, Libby and Shorty (known to her as Justin) marry and begin to climb the social ladder in San Francisco, soon moving into a luxurious residence on Nob Hill, just in time to experience the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, which destroys the city and their home. They settle in Elgin, Illinois and try to rebuild their lives. 

Because of a raging temper, Libby's eighteen-year-old son Seth is kicked out of Elgin. Convinced that his thieving biological father, Soapy Smith, has passed on to him a condition known as the "Black Dog," Seth descends into a life of debauchery and murder in New Orleans and Chicago until a single incident turns his life around.  With little money, he heads for New Orleans by boxcar where his adventure begins.

The narrative next shifts to Seth's son Brian whose adventure begins in earnest when he joins the Army Air Corps during World War II. When the B-17 he is co-piloting crashes over enemy territory, Brian has an opportunity to meet Phoebe, a brave member of the French Resistance who helps him to escape over the Freedom Line into Gibraltar and finally London. He returns to Belgium after the war only to discover that Phoebe is reluctant to marry because of ugly facial scars given to her by the Nazis during torture. 

The narrative shifts again. This time to Brian's young son Stephen who encounters the Manson family during a trip to LA to accept a summer construction job. That horrendous experience stays with him like a persistent nightmare after he turns his back on Dotty, a disciple of Manson who will probably be killed when Brian, Stephen’s father, refuses to comply with Manson's demands after Stephen returns safely home. 

Is Stephen the last in line? Will he escape the Black Dog? Presumably because of his guilt after deserting Dotty, Stephen turns to the ministry. His father goes in the opposite direction after Phoebe is killed in an auto accident. He dies bitterly and relatively alone. One of the highlights in the narrative is Stephen's impersonation of Mark Twain in the annual church pageant. 

Publisher: KOEHLER BOOKS

Introducing "Ida Mae and Her Passage to Chautauqua," Rick's second published novel.  Like his breakout success "Curse of the Klondike" (also published by Koehler Books), Ida Mae shares a common genre known as narrative non-fiction.

Come and meet Ida Mae. You’ll learn to love her. You’ll hear her speaking in the first person as if her words were presented directly to you— “My good friend Jess (also 13) lived in the holler, a place where Momma said I couldn’t go, but I went anyway. As a single unmarried woman with no job, Bridget, Jess’ mother, couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, and Jess and me (my name is Ida Mae) went there often. 

One day, Bridget fell into one of her trances. While under the influence, she announced that an incident involving Loretta Looper would occur during the upcoming vesper services. When word got out, most of the folks in town assumed that a healing of Loretta’s MS would be featured. As a result, the church that evening was packed to the rafters. 

The onlookers were shocked, however,  by what did occur, and sure as Ketchup, it wasn’t a healin’. When the smoke cleared, two men lay dead on the church floor, one of whom was Loretta’s estranged husband.” 

Ida Mae’s adventures as she evolves from a high-spirited thirteen-year-old into womanhood don’t end there. Although the initial experiences occurred in Mammoth Falls, a fictitious town in West Virginia, Ida Mae soon found herself at Pitt on a music scholarship, and from there to Vietnam as a member of the Women’s Army Corps with a loss of one husband and one lover, both of whom die in Nam. 

Attendance at the Ball Buster’s Bash in San Francisco on her way home from war served as a diversion as does her experience as a salesperson at Holly’s Hat on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, California. She arrived at Mammoth Falls in time to travel with friends to Woodstock. Eventually, along with her husband Dennis and her son Adrian, she traveled to Chautauqua, a gated summer resort on Chautauqua Lake in northwestern New York, where her adventures and those of her son continued.