Future World Rolls! by Terry Tumbler

We Are Family

Carousels of Life, Book Two

Space Opera

Published: September 2018

Publisher: Sombrella

This Space Opera is set to Rock n’ Roll and classical music, many of the songs being entirely original and composed by the author.

It starts in the mid-20th century with two talented FBI Special Agents being tasked with recruiting people to undertake a really unusual mission. In the process, they are themselves abducted to take a leading role in that mission, which is intended to save the human race from alien conquest.

It involves time travel into the future, as they lead their hostile hunters on a merry chase across the centuries. They have the full support of other sympathetic races in their imaginative survival techniques, allowing them to go on the offensive.

The characters within embark on a series of adventures that are truly moving in their significance. Based initially on our own Planet Earth, the story employs reported alien sightings and events.

Future World ROLLS to its very core!

Other books in the Carousels of Life Space Opera Series

FUTURE WORLD ROCKS!

Going Back To Our Roots

Carousels of Life, Book One

Published: August 2017

This story contains interwoven strands that are brought together as events unfold.

The first focuses on the aftermath of Nazi research into UFO based systems. Primarily it concerns a flying time travel craft called the ‘Bell’ and its disappearance after those early days when the U.S.A. took over its research.

The second occurs in the future, when alien refugees seek asylum with us on our planet. They come from a planet destroyed by one of its own moons and have wandered the stars, looking for a place to stay.

Soon they are introducing us to other beings, secretly living under the surface of the planet and mining the moon. Naturally, whodunit problems arise for our crime detection agents to resolve.

All this occurs to a backdrop of Rock n’ Roll music, as Future World rocks to its core!

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About the Author

The author, writing under the pseudonym Terry Tumbler, was born in the 1940s in the small province of Wales, in not-as-‘Great’-as-it-once-was Britain. The adjoining photo of the real author has been air-brushed, so that the possibility of anyone stumbling upon his true identity will not disturb him, also believing that no one who reads his first book can possibly recognise him from the long gone days of his childhood. The first book, The Rough and Tumbles of Early Life, as you may be aware, is an accurate recollection of key events that occurred in his early life.  Others of a similar, warped humour and semi-fictional nature have been produced and are being published.

The author left full-time education with a higher level certificate in Business Studies, had a Commercial Apprenticeship in the Titanium Industry, and subsequently gained professional qualifications in Personnel Management and as a Company Secretary. He worked in all aspects of computing for over thirty years, during which time many reports of dubious value and two technical manuals were well-written and printed.

Now retired, and a few months after moving abroad, the author was bemused to find his dear wife sitting alone on her tilting armchair weeping; the reason she gave was shock and horror at the prospect of spending her remaining years with him. Since then, he has done his best to behave himself, but she has still taken out a funeral plan on him. They have three grandchildren, none of whom much like to be with him for more than two weeks.

Those who may wish to inflict retribution for his innocently evil behaviour as a child, may well see through the flimsy disguise, but should know that the author now lives on alien shores and cares not one jot for their intentions.

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Miracles Master the Art by Nancy Lynne Harris

Body,Mind,Spirit / Shamanism

Publisher: GodSpirits United, LLC

Miracles Master the Art gives readers 12 Steps to Heal Yourself Without Medicine.

With this information, you will never have to settle for anything you'd rather change. By controlling your thoughts and attitudes, and by adding certain words to your thinking, you can control your own health, wealth, and peace of mind.

Excerpt

12 STEPS TO HEAL YOURSELF

WITHOUT MEDICINE

It was 1980. When the call came in, I was presenting a jazz workshop for piano teachers in the farmlands of central Washington. My husband, Ray, was called to the phone. I continued presenting the workshop, wondering what was so important that someone was calling him while we were miles away from our home in Auburn, Washington.

When the workshop ended, we said our goodbyes and got into our car for the long drive home. Ray started the car, backed out a few feet, stopped, and looked at me with tears in his eyes. He said, “Oh, honey! That was Jeff on the phone.” Jeff was our oldest son, just twenty years old.  Ray continued, “He said a policeman came to our home early this morning to say that Mike was killed in a car accident.” Mike, our second child, had turned eighteen just eight days earlier. As we drove through the Washington countryside, now eager to get home, I tuned in to the news on the car radio, and we heard them announce the death of our son, Michael Alan Jones. Michael was born in Frankfurt, Germany, while Ray was serving in the U.S. Army. It was an easy birth for me, mainly because I was in my mid-twenties. While I was still in the hospital, an Army doctor who specialized in ophthalmology came by to say he believed our baby might have something wrong with his eyes, and he wanted to see us in his office the following week. We complied, and the doctor confirmed that Michael was born with congenital glaucoma. The doctor explained that fluid was flowing into his eyes faster than it could flow out, which could cause excessive pressure on his optic nerve and lead to blindness. He also said that when the baby was old enough he would need to have surgery to save his sight. 

When Michael reached the appointed age of eighteen months, we were living in military quarters at the Presidio of San Francisco, where another highly skilled ophthalmologist performed surgery twice on his eyes over a period of months. For the next eight years Michael was given daily eye drops and was taken to the doctor at regular intervals to have his eye pressure checked and prescriptions written for medicated eye drops.

 Being the open-minded person that I am, I always felt there was a way for Michael to be healed, if only I could find it, in spite of the doctors who said he would always have glaucoma because they did not know how to heal it. When Ray’s military service ended, we moved from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara, California, and “just happened” to move right across the street from a lady named Evelyn. I saw her out on her lawn one day, so I went over to meet my new neighbor. As we talked, I told her about Michael’s glaucoma, and she told me she taught a class in healing, and that it was possible that Michael could be healed if we studied the course. I was ready to study anything if there was even a remote chance of healing, so we agreed.

 The course she taught was written by a man named William Walter, who, through intensive reading and study, had healed himself of tuberculosis, and then developed this course to train other people in how to heal themselves of medically incurable illnesses. The course taught us that: OUR THINKING CAUSES EVERYTHING THAT WE EXPERIENCE. As time went on, using this approach, we began to have success in healing many things, like the common cold and the annual flu. After we had studied this course for two years, Ray and I went to Los Angeles to take the teachers’ training. We both became certified teachers of Eschatology, the Science of Last Things. Then Ray accepted a position as a purchasing agent in San Jose, California, so once again we moved.  

When Michael was nine years old, he still had glaucoma, was still being given daily prescription eye drops, and was still seeing an accredited ophthalmologist, now in the Bay Area, but I felt the time had come for us to take our stand for healing. I had just taken him in for his three-month pressure check, and with medication his eye pressure was under control. The next day I consciously chose to stop putting the medicated prescription drops in his eyes because I felt I had my thoughts in the right place to accomplish his healing.

 Three months later I took Michael to the ophthalmologist for his checkup. The nurse took us into an examination room and asked me what time he had been given his drops that morning. I said, “I have not given him any drops for three months.” She gave me a look of disbelief and noted that on his chart. When the doctor came into the room, he was angry. He said, “Why have you stopped the drops?” I simply said, “We did not do it ignorantly.” The doctor was obviously shaken.  He tried to calm down and proceeded to check Michael’s eye pressure. Then he became quiet, and after a pause he said, “His pressure checks normal.” I was elated, but I said nothing. 

 The doctor left the room briefly. When he returned, he said his colleague, also an ophthalmologist, was asking my permission to follow Michael’s progress along with him from now on. I simply said “No.” I knew that looking for glaucoma in my child’s eyes could reproduce it. That was the last time Michael went to the ophthalmologist. His glaucoma had vanished.

 What we learned in Eschatology is that our son’s glaucoma was caused by my feeling of being pressured (controlled, domineered) by my mother-in-law, Coleen. She could not let go of her son Ray, my husband, even though we had been married for many years and had three  children of our own. She wanted her own way and expected our obedience. I disliked her very much because of her constant intrusion and demands. Once I learned in Eschatology that she was the source of the pressure I was feeling that was causing Michael’s glaucoma, I knew I had to stand against this woman and learn how to say NO to her, rather than allowing her to push me around any longer. I had to change the way I dealt with her. Always before it had been impossible for me to do this, because she was “Mother” after all, and I was trying to be respectful, but it was way out of control. If we did not do what she wanted, she would remind us that we were supposed to honor our parents. 

 Soon my opportunity came to stand up to her. She called one afternoon and asked us to come for dinner that evening. I said, “No, thank you. We will not be able to come.” That was a first for me, and it felt so good! She continued to ask and argue, and I continued to say “NO.” So she hung up. About five minutes later she called back and asked me again the same question: “Will you come for dinner?” Again I said, “No, thank you.” She continued to urge me, and said Father (her husband) might die soon, and this would be the last time we could be together. (She had used that excuse before.) I stuck to my guns and did not budge. She hung up. Five minutes later she called back for the third time in fifteen minutes. It was as if she had totally forgotten that I had said no already, so we went through it all over again. When we hung up from that third call, I felt triumphant and no longer felt pushed around. I had pushed back, and by changing my attitude in how I handled her demands, I had changed my on-going feelings of being pushed around by her. My feelings had reflected on my child’s eyes as glaucoma, even while he was in my womb. I healed him of glaucoma by taking an action that changed the way I felt. I had allowed that woman to push me around for years, and now it was over. I had reversed my feelings of being pressured. Now I felt in control.

About the Author

Nancy Lynne Harris, M.A., is a graduate of The Four Winds Society, founded by Dr. Alberto Villoldo, where she was trained in shamanism and energy healing. She graduated as a Spiritual Teacher from the Eschatology Foundation in Los Angeles and healed her son Michael of glaucoma as a result. She completed advanced training in Theta Healing and was recognized by Worldwide Who’s Who for excellence in energy medicine.

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What the Parrot Saw by Darlene Marshall

Historical Romance

Publisher: Eve D. Ackerman

Release Date: February 26, 2019

Hijacking an Englishman from a brothel is all in a day’s work for Captain Mattie St. Armand. She needs protective coloration, and a naïve (and expendable) white man will keep the eyes of the authorities off her as she smuggles slaves from the Florida Territory to freedom in the Bahamas.

Oliver Woodruff wanted a spot of travel in the Caribbean before he settled down, but he never expected “Marauding Mattie.” He’ll help her, but he knows there’s no place in his world for the bastard daughter of a pirate and a freedwoman.

As Mattie trains him for their ruse, she comes to realize he’s a man she can turn to for support and companionship, and Oliver grows to love the commanding and daring woman who refuses to fit society’s mold… but both are sure their relationship is doomed by society’s taboos.

It will take danger and adventure (and Roscoe the parrot) to convince them that the passion between them is more than an island fantasy.

Excerpt

1839

“I don’t need a useless white boy. Find someone else to take him off your hands.”

“Not a boy, a man. The sort you favor, captain—golden curls, pouty mouth. He’s quite pretty, I know you’ll agree.”

Captain St. Armand stretched out long legs clad in close fitting buckskins, admiring the shine on boots freshly polished. The brothel on St. Martin offered a variety of services to its clients, from excellent meals to boot-blacking, along with the usual amenities one expected from such establishments.

“If I bring a pretty lad aboard ship, everyone will want one. I don’t share my toys.”

“You’ll take him,” the madam said. “I’m calling in my marker for the incident last year.”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Your ship, your crew, your fault, St. Armand.”

“Really, that man needed some excitement in his life.”

“That’s not the excitement Mr. Carlson sought at this house. He never expected a goat.”

St. Armand snickered at the memory. “I still say what you’re asking is excessive.”

“I thought you’d turn me down.” Barbara Simpson took a sip of the sherry she’d served herself. Her guest was drinking Jamaican rum, as usual. “You should know though, the young man in question is Bunny Rathbone’s relation.”

“Bunny Rathbone! How is the dear old boy?”

“He’s well, moving up in the world. He wrote me to say his cousin was touring the islands and if he came here I should treat him as an honored guest. Bunny implied Mr. Woodruff needed to experience more of life. To put it bluntly, he called the young man a ‘stuffy, boring stick.’ I invited him to the house, but first he ran into a spot of trouble and I brought him here for safekeeping.”

The doors to the parlor were open to catch the afternoon breezes rustling through the bougainvillea—a restful pause before business commenced for the evening. Comfortably rounded and middle-aged, Mrs. Simpson was a shrewd businesswoman whose motto was to give the clients what they desired—within reason—and to treat her girls as she’d wanted to be treated when she’d worked there. She’d miss Captain St. Armand, a favored customer setting sail for Nassau after a stop to provision and catch up on mail and messages from home. A packed valise waited near the door.

“The two of us have fond memories of Bunny’s visits to this house, but I’m sailing on the tide, so bring your package out here and let me see for myself.”

The madam’s bully boys were summoned and returned a short while later with their “package” struggling between them in a futile attempt at freedom. It was a young man in his mid-twenties, and, as promised, he had bright gold hair and sky-blue eyes. One of those eyes was blackened, and a bruise discolored the left side of his face. He was also gagged with his hands tied in front of him.

“As you see, I need your help taking him away, and you could use a cabin boy. You told me so yourself. Mr. Woodruff has an unfortunate habit of speaking intemperately, and there were people who took exception to what he said.”

“People?”

“Americans. Ah, I thought that would interest you.”

“I am slightly tempted,” the captain said, looking the young man over. “I may have a use for him, other than the obvious one. As always, you have an excellent eye for the goods.”

The captive made a noise muffled by his gag.

“Don’t look so horrified, Sunshine. The work’s not onerous and it comes with special benefits. If he’s annoying the Americans I’m thinking of, it makes him far more trouble than he’s worth, Barbara. I’ll pay you for the goat incident and leave him to his own devices.”

“The goat incident set me back twenty-five pounds, not to mention the free services Mr. Carlson received for his embarrassment. You owe me, but if you take Woodruff with you to Nassau we’ll call it done.”

She directed one of her men to get the captive’s gear. The captain pulled a fine cigar from the mahogany box on the table, taking time to light it and inhale before answering.

“Twenty-five pounds? I don’t care how pouty his mouth is, there’s not a man alive worth that amount.”

The bound man squawked again, jerking against the hold on his arms.

“Untie the gag, James. Maybe Woodruff can convince me of his worth.”

The gag removed, the captive worked his square jaw back and forth, glaring at them.

“I demand you release me at once! I am a British citizen and I will notify the authorities!”

St. Armand looked at Mrs. Simpson, then both laughed aloud. Even the guard chuckled.

“How do you intend to back up that demand?” St. Armand asked. “Did you happen to bring a knife with you? Or guns? Or friends with guns?”

“Friends with guns are good, Captain.”

“Indeed they are, James, but I don’t believe Woodruff has friends here, with or without guns.”

“You cannot hold me here! I did not come to the islands to end up in a bawdy house!” he protested.

“Well, that’s your problem right there, Sunshine.”

Woodruff took a deep breath, then looked at the mistress of the house.

“You are not responsible for me, Mrs. Simpson. I am not unappreciative of your protecting me by keeping me here, but I can take care of myself.”

“You don’t seem to be doing a good job of it so far.”

He glared at the sea captain.

“I do not know what your interest in my affairs is, sir, but I do not need your assistance.” He started to step forward, but James’s heavy hand on his shoulder kept him in place.

St. Armand set down the cigar.

“It’s not up to you. Hold out your hands.”

Almost reflexively the man thrust his arms out. St. Armand’s knife sliced through the knots, but when Woodruff tried to pull his arm back, the captain gripped his hand and turned it over.

“Soft and smooth as a nun’s arse. You’ve never hauled lines or done work harder than holding a pen. Don’t look so astounded. I can tell you’re a scribbler from this callus on your finger.” Cold eyes scanned him from his face down to his feet. “Soft all over. I only take crew and cargo aboard my vessel. You are worthless to me.”

The brothel owner delicately cleared her throat.

“Goats, St. Armand. Remember the goats. You don’t have to keep him forever, like a pet. Take him to Nassau or Jamaica and leave him there. You owe me, and I owe”—she paused and looked at her guest—“our mutual friend, so let’s be reasonable about this.”

Woodruff stared at the sea captain. “You are Captain St. Armand? The Captain St. Armand, of the Prodigal Son?”

Before he could answer, the brothel’s majordomo knocked at the door.

“A note arrived for the captain, ma’am, and it’s marked urgent.”

St. Armand read the rumpled paper, a frown creasing the lean face.

“There’s no time for further debate. I’ll dispose of this person for you, Barbara, and make sure the body’s well hidden.”

“What? You can’t kill me!”

They ignored such a patently ridiculous statement, but Mrs. Simpson shook her head.

“I must insist.”

“Oh, very well. Woodruff, you’re coming with me. Your only choice is whether it’s bound and across your saddle, or riding.”

He appeared ready to argue, but after one look at St. Armand’s set face said, “I’ll ride.”

“You’ll find a way to turn a profit on him,” Mrs. Simpson said, rising to her feet as well, “I know you.”

“There is that,” St. Armand said cheerfully. “He could have an unfortunate and fatal accident aboard ship, and I know a surgeon in Nassau who pays well for fresh cadavers. Don’t look so pasty-faced, boy. If you follow orders, you should survive long enough to keep scribbling. The first order is this… The captain is always right, and when I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed. Say ‘Aye, Captain’ if you understand.”

Woodruff looked at him and swallowed.

“Aye, Captain.”

About the Author

Darlene Marshall is the author of award-winning historical romance featuring pirates, privateers, smugglers, and the occasional possum. She loves working at a job where business attire is shorts and a shirt festooned with pink flamingos and palm trees. Marshall lives in North Central Florida, a convenient location for putting the convertible top down and researching sites of great historical significance, which also happen to be at the beach and serve mojitos.

Marshall is a graduate of the University of Florida and worked as a broadcast and print journalist, news anchor, radio station owner, obituary writer and a few other odd jobs. She's section leader for Erotic Writing at TheLitForum.com.

Her books have been published in English, German and Estonian. Awards include the New England Chapter RWA (Romance Writers of America) Readers' Choice Award and Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence for The Pirate's Secret Baby; the Denver RWA Aspen Gold award (Castaway Dreams); the First Coast Romance Writers National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award (The Bride and the Buccaneer), and two EPIC awards.

Represented by Barbara Collins Rosenberg of the Rosenberg Group.

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The Case of Billy's Missing Gun by SJ Slagle

(Sherlock and Me series)

Cozy mystery

Date Published: March 2019

Super sleuth Lucy James is hired to find the Colt pistol that may have belonged to Billy the Kid. Hampered by dishonest weapon experts, a pawnshop murder and unusual architecture at a downtown casino, her investigation is rocky at best. A massive snowstorm has blanketed Reno leaving Lucy to slog her way to interviews with uncooperative witnesses. Her father’s abrupt firing from his job as the host of a local children’s television show and the impending marriage between her best friend Cindy Floyd and her detective fiancé Skip Callahan grab chunks of Lucy’s fleeting attention. But she is determined to find the missing gun before the next snowstorm even though she on and off relationship with handsome professor Eric Schultz is off again. With sheer tenacity and a pair of thick snow boots, Lucy muscles through to the mystery’s resolution. It isn’t easy but the mystery and murder never are.

About the Author

SJ SLAGLE started her writing career as a language arts teacher. Her initial interest was children’s stories, but she moved on to western romance, mysteries, and historical fiction. She has published 24 novels, both independent and contract. SJ contributes regularly to guest blogs and has her own blog called anauthorsworld.com in which she discusses the research involved in the books she writes. SJ has established Twitter and Facebook fan bases, a quarterly author newsletter and a website under her pseudonym: JEANNE HARRELL at jeanneharrell.com.

Her first historical fiction novel, LONDON SPIES, was awarded a B.R.A.G. Medallion in 2018 and Slagle was a finalist in the 2017 UK Independent Book Awards. She was given the Silver Award with the International Independent Film Awards for her screenplay called REDEMPTION. SJ conducts writing/publishing symposiums in her local area. OSLO SPIES, her second historical fiction novel will be published in September. She lives and works in Reno, Nevada.

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Doug Liberty Presents Bandit the Dancing Raccoon by John L. Sheppard

Humor

Published: November 2018

Publisher: Paragraph Line Books

Effete alcoholic Tris Edgar finds a talking raccoon digging through his trash one evening. Tris tells a story of heartbreak, loss and self-defeat, and of his life as an instant celebrity in the internet age. At turns dark and whimsical, Doug Liberty Presents Bandit the Dancing Raccoon is a uncanny fable for the 21st century.

Praise for Doug Liberty Presents Bandit the Dancing Raccoon:

"Sheppard is a hugely imaginative writer, deftly balancing humor, pathos and lyricism." -Self-Publishing Review

Excerpt

When I went to work the next night, Delores wasn’t there. She was supposed to be there. She left behind a note on the back of an order pad that said she was returning to Zanesville, Ohio, and that I shouldn’t follow her because nothing good could come from my following her to Zanesville. She’d double-underlined and capitalized Zanesville in each instance of its use in the note. She helpfully wrote down the address for what she said was her parents’ place in Zanesville at the bottom of the note.

This is how people get in trouble, you know. Not following directions.

It was an adventure. I took the note, left the restaurant, locked the doors and shoved my key under the front mat. I could have tried to drive my car to Zanesville, but it wouldn’t have made it.

I didn’t have much money. I’m not very good with money. This is a problem of mine going way back. All the way back. And all the way forward, too, to the present day. Ask the raccoon, if you can find him. He didn’t appreciate my situation.

I walked down to the Trailways bus station with the intention of buying a ticket to Zanesville, or maybe Cincinnati or Cleveland. I was unsure concerning the geography part of the adventure. Ohio was north. I knew that much.

At the bus station, a dude wearing a white, bellbottomed jumpsuit with “FATTU” spelled out in golden sequins sparkling on his back and sequined flames sewn into the seams from his armpits to his white ankle boots, hired me to ride shotgun with him from Florida to Ohio. I found him pacing around the bus station near the coin-operated TV sets. I’d been on my way to the ticket counter. I expected him to speak in an Elvis-inspired drawl, but he didn’t. His voice was Midwestern flat. There was no musicality to it whatsoever. He spoke quickly, too. “You want to go to Ohio? Let’s do this. Here’s two hundred dollars.” He handed me $300 in twenties. I counted it in front of him and tried to give back the extra hundred. “You keep it! You keep it! Good job! You’re trustworthy. We have a circle of trust going.”

I was wearing my work uniform. We were quite a pair walking out of the bus station to his waiting car, a mid-1970’s Camaro painted gold, like the car in the Rockford Files, glowing under a streetlight. Or was it a Pontiac Firebird? The engine was running. I could see blue smoke rising out of the tailpipe and up into the humid air. It was the rainy season. Everything was wet—ground, trees, people, air. I flung my straw boater onto a palmetto bush growing at the edge of the lot.

Where did I leave my car? Should I have sold my car? It wasn’t worth the effort to think about the car, so I didn’t.

He produced an glass amber bottle of black beauties. The bottle had been around since the 1970’s, like his car. Maybe he’d found it under the bucket seat. I popped a tablet, he popped four. He told me he was going to dictate his novel to me, and I was going to type it all down. He handed me an Olivetti in a brown leatherette zipped case and a roll of paper from a paper towel dispenser. “This is going to be my masterpiece. Type it all down! I’m the new Kerouac!” The speed made me feel like there were invisible live wires under my skin. I kept shouting, “Woop! Woop!” I typed the guy’s masterpiece while he drove. He had an organist’s keyboard built into the dash, and he played it. Bach fugues, mostly, to accompany his dictated writing. There were pipes in the doors. Every note vibrated through them. 

“Her lips were pillows for my psionic mind.” I remember that line. I don’t remember a lot of the rest of it. Most of it was like that, though.

All the roadsigns that I’d read from my annual trips north were still there somehow (Stuckey’s, See Rock City, etc.).

I typed, and the paper kept getting stuck. The ribbon was on its last legs. The paper tore, so I ripped it and tossed it in the seat behind me. I looked back at some point and there were all these curls of typed-upon paper back there.

“Is it done?” he asked me, riffing on the keyboard. “Is it done? Is it done?”

“Yes,” I told him. “It’s done.”

“Cool,” he said, and drove us off the side of a low bridge in Kentucky, bounding over rocks ten feet down before sloshing nose first into the river below.

“I should have asked for more money,” I muttered as the car splashed down.

“What’s that?!” he shouted.

“Never mind.”

We somehow survived. I rolled down the window, climbed out of the car, swam ashore and looked back. The car was gone. So was the author.

About the Author

John L. Sheppard, a graduate of the MFA@FLA creative writing program at the University of Florida, is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He lives in Illinois. He wrote a series of books about the adventures of Audrey Novak.

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Justice Gone by N.Lombardi Jr

About the Book:

When a homeless war veteran is beaten to death by the police, stormy protests ensue, engulfing a small New Jersey town. Soon after, three cops are gunned down. A multi-state manhunt is underway for a cop killer on the loose. And Dr. Tessa Thorpe, a veteran's counselor, is caught up in the chase. Donald Darfield, an African-American Iraqi war vet, war-time buddy of the beaten man, and one of Tessa's patients, is holed up in a mountain cabin. Tessa, acting on instinct, sets off to find him, but the swarm of law enforcement officers get there first, leading to Darfield's dramatic capture. Now, the only people separating him from the lethal needle of state justice are Tessa and ageing blind lawyer, Nathaniel Bodine. Can they untangle the web tightening around Darfield in time, when the press and the justice system are baying for revenge? Justice Gone is the first in a series of psychological thrillers involving Dr Tessa Thorpe, wrapped in the divisive issues of modern American society including police brutality and disenfranchised returning war veterans.

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The US justice system -  does it work?

Some facts about the US justice system are often overlooked, such as the fact that more than 90% of criminal cases never go to trial, and trial by jury is the exception rather than the norm. But when they do, does the trial process work?

In the novel, Justice Gone, two steps of a criminal trial are examined. The first is the Grand Jury proceedings. Many of us don't realize the extent of the state's influence in these hearings. The District Attorney decides what evidence can be admitted, selectively issues subpoenas, and basically runs the show, while the defense plays little or no part. Commonly, overzealous prosecutors will make a case for an indictment that might not be warranted, generating criminal trials for those who may very well be innocent of the charges.

On the other hand, if an indictment is sought against law enforcement officers, the shoe may very well be on the other foot. Law enforcement is on the same side of the fence as the DA, and consequently a conflict of interests is difficult to avoid. That is why indictments against police for using excessive force are rare.

The second step of the trial process is trial by jury, which decides whether to convict or not. And this is where the public and the media can play an unwelcome part.

The trial of O.J. Simpson lasted over eight months and was watched by over 100 million television viewers (comparable to the Super Bowl), and was a sign that even in 1995, the people of the United States had yet to bridge the divide over race, as well as raising doubts over the behavior of law enforcement. But most of all, it provided an intimate glimpse into the US justice system, from jury selection to the jury's verdict.

Although we had a celebrity athlete on trial and the finest criminal defense lawyers in the US - the "Dream Team," the real centerpiece was the jury. Although the trial took eleven months of testimony, it took the jury only four hours to acquit.

So, the question is: Was the verdict of 'not guilty' responsible, impartial and correct?

A poll gave the obvious result that most African-Americans felt that Simpson was innocent, while most Caucasians felt the opposite. Was the fact that 80% of the jurors were African-Americans influence the outcome, i.e. did they acquit Simpson solely due to he being the same race as they?

In my view, race didn't matter for this particular case, because the defense succeeded in raising reasonable doubt. Even if the jury believed Simpson murdered those people, according to the principles of American justice, he should not have been convicted.

The strongest piece of evidence the prosecution had was the DNA forensics, but chain of custody became a big issue. In fact, the handling of all the evidence by the police came under scrutiny, and rightly so. Later during the trial, with the jury absent, Mark Furhman, the detective who found the bloody glove and socks, invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination when asked "did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?"

Then there was the bloody glove found at the crime scene, which the prosecution challenged Simpson to try on. Simpson could not get his hand in.

In post-trial interviews, a few of the jurors said that they believed Simpson probably did commit the murders, but that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Three jurors together wrote and published a book called Madam Foreman, in which they described how their perception of police errors, not race, led to their verdict.

Even more controversial was the Casey Anthony case. Equal to the Simpson trial in terms of attention grabbing, the trial of Casey Anthony, who was accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter, was quite different. The big difference was that while the country was divided over Simpson's guilt, the public and the media overwhelmingly assumed Anthony was guilty, which in turn fueled the outcry over the not guilty verdict. One charge, that of first degree murder, was problematic, in that forensics experts could not determine the cause of the little girl's death, but in general the questions of how, why where and when were never answered satisfactorily. According to many legal experts, the not guilty verdict for Casey Anthony can be seen as a victory for the U.S. justice system, despite strong public opinion opposing it, mainly because it upheld the concept of reasonable doubt.

In an ABC News interview, juror Jennifer Ford said that she and the other jurors cried and were "sick to our stomachs" after voting to acquit Casey Anthony of charges that she killed her daughter. "I did not say she was innocent," said Ford,. "I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be."

So is the flaw in the system reasonable doubt itself. How can legal experts exclaim victory, even if a guilty person is allowed to be released back into society?

It's because the opposite case, convictions of innocent people are not only possible, but probably occur at a rate that would alarm you.

Let us look inside John Grisham's true crime study, An Innocent Man, a revealing and well documented account of three separate trials, and the wrongful conviction of five men (perhaps the title should have been The Innocent Men). In one case, the police and prosecutor used forced "dream" confessions, unreliable witnesses, and flimsy evidence to convict Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz of murder and rape. After suffering through a conviction and eleven years on death row, Williamson and Fritz were exonerated by DNA evidence and released on April 15, 1999.  Similar narratives apply to the trials of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot, and the trial of Greg Wilhoit, namely horror stories of persecution, harassment, fraud, lying snitches, and fabricated evidence. If reasonable doubt had been applied, those men would have never been incarcerated on death row (this was in Oklahoma, where the death penalty still exists). Fortunately, these men were exonerated before they could be put to death.

One could surmise that so much of a trial outcome depends on the jury. That is why I dedicated a whole chapter in Justice Gone on the jury deliberations in the trial of Donald Darfield.

Whether it's a blessing or a curse, for court cases in the US, justice is in the hands of ordinary citizens.

About the Author:

N. Lombardi Jr, the N for Nicholas, has spent over half his life in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, working as a groundwater geologist. Nick can speak five languages: Swahili, Thai, Lao, Chinese, and Khmer (Cambodian).

In 1997, while visiting Lao People's Democratic Republic, he witnessed the remnants of a secret war that had been waged for nine years, among which were children wounded from leftover cluster bombs. Driven by what he saw, he worked on The Plain of Jars for the next eight years.

Nick maintains a website with content that spans most aspects of the novel: The Secret War, Laotian culture, Buddhism etc.

His second novel, Journey Towards a Falling Sun, is set in the wild frontier of northern Kenya.

His latest novel, Justice Gone was inspired by the fatal beating of a homeless man by police.
Nick now lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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