Gene Lovell was born into the Great Depression where economics narrowed his choices to beans and biscuits at meal time. A predatory aunt narrowed his sexual menu to cunnilingus. Is he forever doomed to eat limas and pussy, or can he shed those fetters for richer paths in a forest of infinite possibilities? Does one's selection of friends and companions influence his predilections? Suppose he marries a celebrated whore? Will he continue the behaviors his environmental exposures have dictated? Will the goals of his life be affected by a dramatic late-life experimental robotic surgery and his post-operative care givers, as well as the death of his life-long partner? Quest explores the answers to how far what we do defines who we are.

Buzzy comes home to Rodanthe on Hatteras Island to discover the love of his life, a beautiful ainoko (Japanese for Love Child) has taken their child and fled to her family's home in West Virginia because she felt alienated by their Jap-hating neighbors. With his father's blessing, money, and manpower, Buzzy sets out to bring them back. They are met by a hail of bullets resulting in the death of Lotty's mother.

Feeling sad and alone, Lotty flees again with the child only then discovering he has cystic fibrosis. She takes any job and does whatever is necessary to keep the boy alive and out of his father's reach. She shrewdly plays Buzzy for money when times are desperate. She accepts help and protection from whatever source presents itself-anything and everything a good mother does for her offspring. The near-death experiences Lotty endures over the years are wrenching for her, but unknown to Buzzy, whose only interest is custody at whatever cost.

Money and desperation combine to reunite the parents in the end. Lotty needs medical help for the child, whose health is rapidly declining and Buzzy is persuaded it is time to pay up. Does common sense and redemption finally win out?

Zippy Cosmo moves his wife and family from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore to escape the city's inhumanity and growing civil rights violence. The small provincial town they settle in is sleepy and remote; it seems ideal to raise their five children. But, a tattoo artist rents the old post office building and "tattoos the wrong farmer's daughter" according to the local intel.

The search for his killer and how it impacts this family's lives is what makes THE INK MASTER MURDER, a mystery by Gene Lovell, a fascinating read. Can you dig it?

Can a leopard change its spots? What cataclysmic force or horrific event could bring a God-fearing, straight-as-an-arrow man to embrace Charles Ponzi as a hero?

Zippy Cosmo was born at the height of the Great Depression to impoverished parents. He grew up on a cigarette and a piss for breakfast, but with a steely work ethic and a penchant for self-sacrifice and honesty. His picture is the dictionary definition of altruism. Widows and orphans championed him. He brought great happiness to the orgasmically deprived. No charitable cause was beneath his notice. The great, near-great, and the gutter-dweller were thrilled to be the subject of one of his magnificent, unsolicited oil portraits.

Yet at life's end, he ripped off thousands for millions. Who wrought this change? The mob? A dominatrix?

Witness the transformation of a soul that would give Freud dreams of revision...

Auburn Jackson was alone, ignorant, and pregnant, but not unBibled. She had sinned and was punished with a brain-damaged child to raise in the impoverished wilds of West Virginia. But she had spunk and the guile of the street-smart, and she believed in the innate goodness in all. So armed, Auburn guts out a nursing degree while caring for her child, only to see him die like his father in a mine. Thinking to redeem herself from God's wrath, Auburn takes a nursing job for handicapped youth on Hatteras Island and finds happiness and fulfillment for a time. She revels in loving an Indian child from her own birthplace on Knapps Creek.

No good deed goes unpunished, the sage says and Auburn is not immune. Marriage, an in-wedlock child, and a happy home are not in God's plan for her redemption in this love story.

Who is lying? A child comes home and reports that he has had sex with his teacher. At the same time, a teacher reports to her principal that she has received a note from a student wherein the student threatens to tell the world that they (the student and the teacher) have had sex unless the teacher gives him a passing grade. If you set this conflict in a poor, rural community where rumor is king and backyard gossip is the coin of the realm, you have an explosive drama best compared to "To Kill a Mockingbird." Add to this that the teacher is a first-year, pretty young thing from out-of-state and the student is an underachiever from a well-known, in-your-face, local family and the stage is quite literally set for a polarized community cat fight.Who would you believe?

The 'Amber Room" treasure hunt is different from most searches for riches; it actually begins at the end of a war as a quest for blood and bone-men, desperate criminal men, trying to avoid prosecution for war crimes. The Allies are trying to capture these men, who now seek refuge in the West, by slipping by their captors disguised as ordinary citizens. Wolves pretending to be sheep; rats masquerading mice.hence the tag line for their route, a Rat Line. Our heroes are counterintelligence GI's, who have a hard time convincing their superiors that such a Rat Line really exists. They even risk court martial to prove their point.

The war ends and the discouraged Allies turn their attention to more materially rewarding activity: finding this immense fortune stolen by the Nazis and hidden in the Soviet Zone of occupation. First they have to crack the information out of the Nazi who stole it, now a prisoner in Colditz Castle, find it, then ferret it out of a Europe swarming with refugees, communists, starving patriots, and desperate ideologues. Along the way they become woodsmen, gypsies, and members of a circus. But, will their disguises pay off?

A century after the close of the Civil War, Yankees stage another foray into Dixie, this time the objective is control of a venerable beloved insurance company-The Southland. In terms reminiscent of Sherman's assault on Atlanta, Baltimore stockbrokers attempt to gain control of an institution as emblematic of southern culture and manners as Tara in "Gone With the Wind." Fought this time with proxies and ballots instead of musket balls, this conflict puts to the test the hearts and minds of a generation who thought they had outgrown the biases and prejudices of the survivors of the War Between the States.

Gene Lovell was born into the Great Depression where economics narrowed his choices to beans and biscuits at meal time. A predatory aunt narrowed his sexual menu to cunnilingus. Is he forever doomed to eat limas and pussy, or can he shed those fetters for richer paths in a forest of infinite possibilities? Does one's selection of friends and companions influence his predilections? Suppose he marries a celebrated whore? Will he continue the behaviors his environmental exposures have dictated? Will the goals of his life be affected by a dramatic late-life experimental robotic surgery and his post-operative care givers, as well as the death of his life-long partner? Quest explores the answers to how far what we do defines who we are.

Zippy Cosmo moves his wife and family from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore to escape the city's inhumanity and growing civil rights violence. The small provincial town they settle in is sleepy and remote; it seems ideal to raise their five children. But, a tattoo artist rents the old post office building and "tattoos the wrong farmer's daughter" according to the local intel.

The search for his killer and how it impacts this family's lives is what makes THE INK MASTER MURDER, a mystery by Gene Lovell, a fascinating read. Can you dig it?

Can a leopard change its spots? What cataclysmic force or horrific event could bring a God-fearing, straight-as-an-arrow man to embrace Charles Ponzi as a hero?

Zippy Cosmo was born at the height of the Great Depression to impoverished parents. He grew up on a cigarette and a piss for breakfast, but with a steely work ethic and a penchant for self-sacrifice and honesty. His picture is the dictionary definition of altruism. Widows and orphans championed him. He brought great happiness to the orgasmically deprived. No charitable cause was beneath his notice. The great, near-great, and the gutter-dweller were thrilled to be the subject of one of his magnificent, unsolicited oil portraits.

Yet at life's end, he ripped off thousands for millions. Who wrought this change? The mob? A dominatrix?

Witness the transformation of a soul that would give Freud dreams of revision...

A century after the close of the Civil War, Yankees stage another foray into Dixie, this time the objective is control of a venerable beloved insurance company-The Southland. In terms reminiscent of Sherman's assault on Atlanta, Baltimore stockbrokers attempt to gain control of an institution as emblematic of southern culture and manners as Tara in "Gone With the Wind." Fought this time with proxies and ballots instead of musket balls, this conflict puts to the test the hearts and minds of a generation who thought they had outgrown the biases and prejudices of the survivors of the War Between the States.

Auburn Jackson was alone, ignorant, and pregnant, but not unBibled. She had sinned and was punished with a brain-damaged child to raise in the impoverished wilds of West Virginia. But she had spunk and the guile of the street-smart, and she believed in the innate goodness in all. So armed, Auburn guts out a nursing degree while caring for her child, only to see him die like his father in a mine. Thinking to redeem herself from God's wrath, Auburn takes a nursing job for handicapped youth on Hatteras Island and finds happiness and fulfillment for a time. She revels in loving an Indian child from her own birthplace on Knapps Creek.

No good deed goes unpunished, the sage says and Auburn is not immune. Marriage, an in-wedlock child, and a happy home are not in God's plan for her redemption in this love story.

Buzzy comes home to Rodanthe on Hatteras Island to discover the love of his life, a beautiful ainoko (Japanese for Love Child) has taken their child and fled to her family's home in West Virginia because she felt alienated by their Jap-hating neighbors. With his father's blessing, money, and manpower, Buzzy sets out to bring them back. They are met by a hail of bullets resulting in the death of Lotty's mother.

Feeling sad and alone, Lotty flees again with the child only then discovering he has cystic fibrosis. She takes any job and does whatever is necessary to keep the boy alive and out of his father's reach. She shrewdly plays Buzzy for money when times are desperate. She accepts help and protection from whatever source presents itself-anything and everything a good mother does for her offspring. The near-death experiences Lotty endures over the years are wrenching for her, but unknown to Buzzy, whose only interest is custody at whatever cost.

Money and desperation combine to reunite the parents in the end. Lotty needs medical help for the child, whose health is rapidly declining and Buzzy is persuaded it is time to pay up. Does common sense and redemption finally win out?

Who is lying? A child comes home and reports that he has had sex with his teacher. At the same time, a teacher reports to her principal that she has received a note from a student wherein the student threatens to tell the world that they (the student and the teacher) have had sex unless the teacher gives him a passing grade. If you set this conflict in a poor, rural community where rumor is king and backyard gossip is the coin of the realm, you have an explosive drama best compared to "To Kill a Mockingbird," Add to this that the teacher is a first-year, pretty young thing from out-of-state and the student is an underachiever from a well-known, in-your-face, local family and the stage is quite literally set for a polarized community cat fight. Who would you believe?

The 'Amber Room treasure hunt is different from most searches for riches; it actually begins at the end of a war as a quest for blood and bone-men, desperate criminal men, trying to avoid prosecution for war crimes. The Allies are trying to capture these men, who now seek refuge in the West, by slipping by their captors disguised as ordinary citizens. Wolves pretending to be sheep; rats masquerading mice.hence the tag line for their route, a Rat Line. Our heroes are counterintelligence GI's, who have a hard time convincing their superiors that such a Rat Line really exists. They even risk court martial to prove their point. The war ends and the discouraged Allies turn their attention to more materially rewarding activity: finding this immense fortune stolen by the Nazis and hidden in the Soviet Zone of occupation. First they have to crack the information out of the Nazi who stole it, now a prisoner in Colditz Castle, find it, then ferret it out of a Europe swarming with refugees, communists, starving patriots, and desperate ideologues. Along the way they become woodsmen, gypsies, and members of a circus. But, will their disguises pay off?