Thirteen million dollars remain buried from a Spokane bank heist ten years earlier. Only one of the five robbers was captured. The day he's released from prison, he hurries to a rendezvous with another at Becky Allison's blackjack table, where the two exchange the coded whereabouts of other gang members and two of five clues necessary to locate the cache. Sensing they've been followed, both head for the casino elevator, after tipping Becky with large bills. The Blackjack List is folded inside one of them. Peril looms. The chase begins. Being both the pursued AND pursuer is the double bind that confronts Becky Allison and Dr. David Baxter, her fiance. Whatever they do risks their lives. Bad guys galore turn up everywhere during forty-eight frenetic hours of fleeing, chasing, and deciphering the treasure map -The Blackjack List.

One of WWII's most successful weapons was the Norden bombsight. Nazis coveted them the most from downed US bombers. American flyboys were taught to destroy the bombsights with thermal grenades, which caused them to melt into a molten mass rather than let them fall into enemy hands. When Hitler learns that an improved version would undergo testing on a B-17 by Honeywell Corporation in Minnesota, he orders Abwehr (German intelligence) to steal it for deliverance to his scientists and engineers in Berlin. Two spies with specific skills are tasked for the assignment. The idealism of one conflicts with the murderous acts of the other. Slayings occur during their journey from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Wold-Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis. Colonel Lukas Schott, the scion of German royalty, is a country gentleman and is blind to the fanaticism and treachery of the Third Reich. Major Rebekka Bader, an orphan and a pathological killer, wreaks destruction and death at every opportunity. Dissonance between them is ever-present. FBI Chief Inspector Lorenzo Tharp, like a bloodhound, follows their trail of dead bodies.

Gifted siblings Jane and Kenny Palmer yearn for a normal family life when Papa returns from WWI as a maimed hero, but a labor riot and subway shooting change everything.

What about those who'd drowned in the convoy since midnight? They were dead... their dreams quashed by a devastating event. Poof Gone One minute breathing... the next not. What about loved ones who were awaiting their arrival in America? Their dreams were quashed, too, weren't they? How were the dead ones chosen? And the survivors? Some would say it was their destiny, the work of an omniscient God. Surely, purpose and meaning mattered, though, or why would God even cause their existence to occur, if only to end for some in such a questionable and unfathomable fate? Those other ships were sunk by German U-boat torpedoes, but not Johnny's? No one was given a choice... yet, he survived to write this autobiography.

Thirteen million dollars remain buried from a Spokane bank heist ten years earlier. Only one of the five robbers was captured. The day he's released from prison, he hurries to a rendezvous with another at Becky Allison's blackjack table, where the two exchange the coded whereabouts of other gang members and two of five clues necessary to locate the cache. Sensing they've been followed, both head for the casino elevator, after tipping Becky with large bills. The Blackjack List is folded inside one of them. Peril looms. The chase begins. Being both the pursued AND pursuer is the double bind that confronts Becky Allison and Dr. David Baxter, her fiance. Whatever they do risks their lives. Bad guys galore turn up everywhere during forty-eight frenetic hours of fleeing, chasing, and deciphering the treasure map -The Blackjack List.

One of WWII's most successful weapons was the Norden bombsight. Nazis coveted them the most from downed US bombers. American flyboys were taught to destroy the bombsights with thermal grenades, which caused them to melt into a molten mass rather than let them fall into enemy hands. When Hitler learns that an improved version would undergo testing on a B-17 by Honeywell Corporation in Minnesota, he orders Abwehr (German intelligence) to steal it for deliverance to his scientists and engineers in Berlin. Two spies with specific skills are tasked for the assignment. The idealism of one conflicts with the murderous acts of the other. Slayings occur during their journey from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Wold-Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis. Colonel Lukas Schott, the scion of German royalty, is a country gentleman and is blind to the fanaticism and treachery of the Third Reich. Major Rebekka Bader, an orphan and a pathological killer, wreaks destruction and death at every opportunity. Dissonance between them is ever-present. FBI Chief Inspector Lorenzo Tharp, like a bloodhound, follows their trail of dead bodies.

Orphaned by the murders of their parents, a brother and sister are separated by adoption -- Kenny to Nebraska, and Jane to Chicago... then Hollywood, where a studio accident nearly kills her. What's a movie star to do when her screen idol fiance goes missing in Nazi Germany during World War II? Meanwhile, her math prodigy brother is recruited by British Intelligence (MI6) to crack Hitler's Enigma code at Bletchley Park in England.

This is the sequel to John R. Downes' second novel, Orphans Song.