A novel about the disappearance of an enigmatic poet/prodigy, Roland Paradise, as told through the words of Paradise and the testimony of those who knew him and those he knew.

In a nonlinear structure, it unravels the story of Paradise from boy genius to watchmaker, to wartime codebreaker, to writer, to teacher, to hermetic genius. Roland Paradise the father, the son, the prodigy, the epicist, the enigmatist. The rumors, the stories, the accusations. Where is he? Is he? Was he ever.?

His mind was a cryptish place, an enigma, a harmless cipher machine knocked senseless by the insane attempts of others to decode it as though it held an inherent truth while driving him to another time, to anytime.

Roland Paradise was ultimately a sad and lonely figure, a possibly delusional reclusive intellectual for whom life held little joy. For all his brilliance, he never learned life's simplest lessons. A compulsive fabulist whose life and disappearance was more fantastic than any of the stories he invented or the lies he couldn't help telling.

This is the story of one of the most dramatic baseball seasons ever, as it stretched both backwards and forwards--from the ghosts of seasons and players past to the reality of what followed. At the beginning of 1986, most of the baseball talk was about money; at the end it was about one of the most dramatic seasons ever, a season that played out like a compelling drama driven by a cast of memorable characters--Bonds, Canseco, Puckett, Ryan, Rose, Boyd, Gooden, Strawberry, Clemens, Hernandez, Boggs, and more. On an institutional level the game was facing critical issues--player contracts, collusion, drugs, free agency, charges of racism, cheating, gambling, the growing popularity of professional football, and the influence of cable TV and satellites. Yet it produced a season of intense drama ending with an unforgettable post-season.

After a Choctaw Indian is convicted of murder and is sentenced to be executed, he is allowed to go free and play baseball for his team if he will promise to return after his final game to be shot. He agrees. In 1897 in the Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma) a young Choctaw Indian, Walla Tonehka, attends a local dance. When his girlfriend turns up accompanied by another man, Tonehka, in a fit of jealous rage, draws his pistol and in full sight of others, shoots his rival dead with a single shot. He is quickly convicted by a Choctaw court and sentenced. However, since he is the outstanding player on the Choctaw baseball team which is so important to the Choctaw Nation's sense of accomplishment, the deal is struck. The situation garners great national interest and is reported by newspapers across the country. Questions abound. Will he honor his promise and agree to be executed? Should he? If he does, is he a hero or a fool? At the last minute will he run off? Is the Choctaw sense of honor stronger than that of others? Is the greater sin preferring life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth having? Who really has the authority in this case, the U.S. government or the Choctaw Nation?

After what appears to be a series of linked murders, suspicion is thrown on three film noir-loving brothers. When a strange film appears to shed light on the killings, a young detective becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery only to be drawn into a world of ambiguity where perception and interpretation are challenged by illusion and reality.

One of the most controversial issues still resounding from WW II relates to Switzerland's role as a non-combatant. As the novel opens, Hitler has had Austria and Poland for breakfast, made a quick snack of Norway, and now wants Switzerland for lunch believing that since it was part of the Holy Roman Empire--First Reich--it should necessarily be part of the Third. During its darkest hour Switzerland is surrounded by aggressive fascist armies--its politicians quavering and its people beginning to lose hope of retaining their freedom. Switzerland's only general, Henri Guisan, steps into this miasma of growing despair. For him the only way to save the country is to shift most of the Swiss Army to the Alps, leaving the main cities at the mercy of the Panzers. His one hope-learn the details of the attack in advance. Enter James St. Lawrence O'Toole, charming prodigal son of an Irish peer who has sold off his considerable art collection to support his profligate ways. O'Toole is persuaded to pose as an "art consultant" to Herman Goring as the Reichsmarschall competes with Hitler to amass the best collection of European masterpieces. The Irishman works through the American O.S.S. spy in Switzerland, Allan Dulles, in an attempt to learn the details of the anticipated German invasion of Switzerland. As he insinuates himself with Goring and begins to gain the Reichsmarschall's trust, he crosses paths with Elfriede Sholtz, a German resistance fighter and sister of the celebrated author Erich Maria Remarque, now exiled in Switzerland; Joseph Schmidt, the popular Jewish tenor, who escapes to Switzerland only to be put in an internment camp; and Lothar Krebs, a young Swiss rifleman called on to help defend his country against a Nazi invasion. O'Toole is exposed when he tries to pass off a fake Vermeer painting to Goring and finds himself imprisoned with the others. This not so much a novel of good versus evil or right versus wrong, but of complicated values and complex issues. Neither a defense of Swiss efforts to maintain their vaunted neutrality nor a blatant condemnation of the nation and their self-serving actions, rather it tells the story of individuals struggling for survival as 4M Swiss surrounded by 20M Nazis prepare for the inevitable invasion.

One in a series of books designed to present the wonders of science to young girls.

You Can't Win is the true story of one woman's courageous battle with a debilitating addiction and the forces that wanted to keep her dependent on gambling.

Born of a desperate need to please her mother and to escape an abusive father and brother, she becomes addicted first to Bingo and then to slot machines. She slowly slips into a life of lies, self-deception, and despair and finds herself on the verge of losing everything, including her family and ultimately her life.

When she attempts to pull herself out of the spiral of depression and defeat, she is beaten back through a blatant disregard of the law by the powerful Detroit casinos. She comes to learn that the influence of casino profits on the political system is overwhelming and that the economic interests of the state far outweigh the social costs. In the end, she can't win on the slots, but with the love and support of her husband, she can put a broken life back together

A novel about the disappearance of an enigmatic poet/prodigy, Roland Paradise, as told through the words of Paradise and the testimony of those who knew him and those he knew.

In a nonlinear structure, it unravels the story of Paradise from boy genius to watchmaker, to wartime codebreaker, to writer, to teacher, to hermetic genius. Roland Paradise the father, the son, the prodigy, the epicist, the enigmatist. The rumors, the stories, the accusations. Where is he? Is he? Was he ever.?

His mind was a cryptish place, an enigma, a harmless cipher machine knocked senseless by the insane attempts of others to decode it as though it held an inherent truth while driving him to another time, to anytime.

Roland Paradise was ultimately a sad and lonely figure, a possibly delusional reclusive intellectual for whom life held little joy. For all his brilliance, he never learned life's simplest lessons. A compulsive fabulist whose life and disappearance was more fantastic than any of the stories he invented or the lies he couldn't help telling.

The two liars: Roger Kidd, eminent musicologist, respected teacher, devoted father; and Catherine Lapouge, enigmatic idealist, committed activist, brilliant leader. Both are at once the hunters and the hunted in this story of mystery and deceit where little is what it appears and no one is quite who they say. Roger Kidd has the world--respect, a tenured position at a prestigious university, and a gifted young son. When one afternoon his son disappears, everything changes. Suddenly there is no one whom he can trust. As his ordered world begins to collapse, he is drawn into a high-powered cabalistic organization and the hunt for the legendary Lapouge. His search leads him through a maze of intrigue and deceit into the secretive world of eugenics and utopian ideals. Kidd's story is one of a son gone mysteriously missing and of obsession born of desperation. His relentless pursuit of his son's abductor jeopardizes his life as well as those close to him, and forces him to decide whether the truth is balanced by the pain of finding it. Lapouge's story is one of a world on the brink of destruction and a fanatical drive to save it regardless of the personal cost or the moral implications of her actions.