Sex, drugs, murder, and a lot of laughs are what make it hard to put down the latest work of fiction by LR Penn. Collision Course examines various facets of the American dream, contrasting the lifestyle inside the white picket fence with the fantasy world out in the fast lane. Three women are waging a 21st century version of the battle of the sexes as they search for personal fulfillment, but their intertwined lives are irreparably changed by a suspicious suicide. The novel's heroine, an alienated slacker with a strong libido, decides that she needs to get to the bottom of the mysterious death, and it is she who opens a Pandora's box from which bursts forth a whirling maelstrom of greed, adultery, and homicide. Despite a fast moving plot with an emphasis on suspense, eroticism, and irreverent humor, the narrative is richly textured and intellectually provocative. By the end of the book, who did what has been made clear, but the lines between hero and victim and villain have become blurred.

In this stunning work of historical fiction, LR Penn has concocted a breathtaking epic adventure that begins in 1890 in a small Zulu village in South Africa but spans three centuries and two continents. It is also a personal memoir that tells the story of a family torn apart by a racist totalitarian regime. The book examines a series of powerful conflicts: the cultural clash between ancient ethnic traditions and encroaching Western values; the political battle between the underground resistance movement and the repressive military strength of a modern nation state; and stirring personal conflicts, as illustrated by the impossibly difficult choices that the novel's heroes are forced to make - between the quest for liberation and the pursuit of love, between a family's security and a people's freedom. Diamonds on a River of Tears presents an in depth portrait of day-to-day life in a society altogether out of balance, playfully juxtaposing its comic absurdities and tragic injustices, but ultimately handing down a moral indictment that all of contemporary civilization will have to face.

Although Gambled Lives opens with the funeral of a beloved twenty-two year old beauty, its story is filled with humor as well as suspense. The narrator, Charlie G., is a diffident, weak willed millennial who sometimes comes across as a latter day Holden Caulfield. Charlie has spent much of his youth enjoying the crumbs left on the table by his best friend Keith, whose intensely hedonistic lifestyle has included a steady diet of drugs, sex, and gambling. But when Keith's girlfriend is found dead in her apartment Charlie is reluctantly drawn into investigating the girl's death. His inquiries bring him a new perspective on the world, and new insights into the complex interplay of forces that govern the course of human relationships; and he comes to understand that he will have to overcome his passivity and trust in his own instincts in order to take control of his life.

In this one act farce, LR Penn, who specializes in dysfunctional suburban families, spices up the action with enough drugs, sex, and violence to keep the audience titillated during the occasional interval between the abundant laughs and the surprising plot twists. In keeping with the traditions of the genre there is a healthy dose of adultery, slapstick, and mistaken identity, although the identities are not so much mistaken as actively misrepresented by the characters themselves. This is a play in which none of the characters seems capable of telling the truth, being themselves, or divulging their actual intentions. But what goes on in the dark eventually comes to light, and what emerges is the story of a family's struggle to assume control of their own lives in the face of the nefarious manipulations of a bullying father, in a classic conflict between the quest for freedom, individuality, and fulfillment and an oppressive regime that is seeking to maintain the status quo.

How do people get so crazy? LR Penn, it seems, knows exactly how. The Syzygy is a triptych constructed from a series of stylistically disparate narratives that portray, in their own words, the novel's main characters, three young adults working in Silicon Valley: a patient in session with her psychotherapist, a blogger spouting male chauvinist propaganda, and a man in confinement confessing to his misdeeds. Over the course of the novel, the roots of the characters' personalities are exposed and it is possible to discern how the forces that shaped their lives have instilled in them the anger, guilt, love, and lust that now govern their behavior. The book's title refers to the interactions among the celestial bodies in a gravitational system, and is suggestive of the inevitability of the calamitous events that lead to the novel's dramatic conclusion, as dictated by the inescapable past that is haunting each of the three protagonists.

In the Blood is the screenplay for an edge-of-your-seat thriller whose fast moving plot rapidly weaves a tight web of blackmail, incest, sexual jealousy, and revenge. A deadly curse hangs over the heads of three generations of a southern California family whose youngest member, an eleven-year-old girl, finds herself in terrible danger. The film's heroine is a young police officer who is desperately trying to find the girl's mother. But a conspiracy driven by greed, lust, and shame is equally determined that the truth should remain hidden. The missing woman was no angel, and there are plenty of suspects to choose from, including an estranged husband, an angry ex-lover, her detestable father, her mysterious brother, and a jealous rival. Can the abandoned child be protected from the predators lurking in the shadows, or is history destined to repeat itself? The film's dramatic tension builds steadily until it is resolved in a shocking denouement, which, though violent and tragic, leaves some room for hope.

The same spicy, irreverent humor that characterizes LR Penn's fiction is to be found in abundance in his first full length theatrical work. Davis Goodman, the play's hero, sold out the dreams and ideals of his youth when he moved to Long Island and became a real estate salesman, seduced by the comfort and security of a suburban bourgeois lifestyle. As he approaches his fortieth birthday, however, he is plagued by serious concerns about his career satisfaction, his wife's fidelity, his daughter's moral character, and his family's avid consumerism. Like Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Davis is pining away for a lost golden era and is being destroyed by a rapidly changing world to which he has failed to adapt. Davis manages to avoid Willy's tragic end by embarking upon a wild spiritual odyssey during which an ex-con, a shrink, a call girl, and a teen mom help him to reconcile his Woodstock generation values with the realities of twenty-first century living.

Sex, drugs, murder, and a lot of laughs are what make it hard to put down the latest work of fiction by LR Penn. Collision Course examines various facets of the American dream, contrasting the lifestyle inside the white picket fence with the fantasy world out in the fast lane. Three women are waging a 21st century version of the battle of the sexes as they search for personal fulfillment, but their intertwined lives are irreparably changed by a suspicious suicide. The novel's heroine, an alienated slacker with a strong libido, decides that she needs to get to the bottom of the mysterious death, and it is she who opens a Pandora's box from which bursts forth a whirling maelstrom of greed, adultery, and homicide. Despite a fast moving plot with an emphasis on suspense, eroticism, and irreverent humor, the narrative is richly textured and intellectually provocative. By the end of the book, who did what has been made clear, but the lines between hero and victim and villain have become blurred.

In this stunning work of historical fiction, LR Penn has concocted a breathtaking epic adventure that begins in 1890 in a small Zulu village in South Africa but spans three centuries and two continents. It is also a personal memoir that tells the story of a family torn apart by a racist totalitarian regime. The book examines a series of powerful conflicts: the cultural clash between ancient ethnic traditions and encroaching Western values; the political battle between the underground resistance movement and the repressive military strength of a modern nation state; and stirring personal conflicts, as illustrated by the impossibly difficult choices that the novel's heroes are forced to make - between the quest for liberation and the pursuit of love, between a family's security and a people's freedom. Diamonds on a River of Tears presents an in depth portrait of day-to-day life in a society altogether out of balance, playfully juxtaposing its comic absurdities and tragic injustices, but ultimately handing down a moral indictment that all of contemporary civilization will have to face.