Shortly before the onset of hostilities in Europe in 1939, the celebrated Italian conductor, Maestro Marcantonio Omodei, departs Rome to accept a position with New York's Metropolitan Opera Company under Toscanini. His wife, Anita, plans to join him after the arrival of their precious baby.

Christened Marcus Aurelius, the boy is born amidst the first salvos of the European war. Separated from his family for the duration of hostilities, the Maestro is forced, enemy alien status notwithstanding, to endure the mild discomforts of wartime New York City, while mother and child are left to face an uncertain future. Reconciled to a long separation from the one true love of her life, Anita manages the resulting trials with grit and humor. The experience stirs her to reassess her ancestral values, a process that dramatically transforms not only her world, but also her very being. Through it all, Anita is abetted by two childhood friends: Adriana, a blasphemous and fiercely cynical spinster, and a worldly nun named Eugenia.

Wrenched from the fringes of her relatively humdrum purgatory, Anita is swept into the vortex of a developing tempest and the deceptive calm that follows its conclusion.

Borne on the wings of a reluctant empire, long before the overt and full commitment of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia, the seeds of what would later be known as the Laotian Secret War were being planted by an unconventional assemblage of heroes and knaves, lunatics and eccentrics.

Sgt. Marcus Omodei, a weatherman with the U.S. Air Force and an expert marksman, stumbles into the vortex of the coming storm. On the way to a new posting in Thailand, he is puzzled to discover that his security classification has been elevated to top secret. He doesn't know it yet, but this is just the prelude to a series of adventures that he won't soon forget.

Soon, Omodei finds himself playing a critical role in the secret war. And as time passes, he achieves a karmic oneness with the surrounding forest. The more charitable describe it as going native, the less so, as lunacy.

."come in Rangoon (c)," the second book in a sextet of stories featuring Omodei, details the erstwhile military assassin's drug enhanced spree of erotic escapades and crush of violence, keeping you enthralled from start to finis

Borne on the wings of a reluctant empire, long before the overt and full commitment of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia, the seeds of what would later be known as the Laotian Secret War were being planted by an unconventional assemblage of heroes and knaves, lunatics and eccentrics.

Sgt. Marcus Omodei, a weatherman with the U.S. Air Force and an expert marksman, stumbles into the vortex of the coming storm. On the way to a new posting in Thailand, he is puzzled to discover that his security classification has been elevated to top secret. He doesn't know it yet, but this is just the prelude to a series of adventures that he won't soon forget.

Soon, Omodei finds himself playing a critical role in the secret war. And as time passes, he achieves a karmic oneness with the surrounding forest. The more charitable describe it as going native, the less so, as lunacy.

."come in Rangoon (c)," the second book in a sextet of stories featuring Omodei, details the erstwhile military assassin's drug enhanced spree of erotic escapades and crush of violence, keeping you enthralled from start to finis

Shortly before the onset of hostilities in Europe in 1939, the celebrated Italian conductor, Maestro Marcantonio Omodei, departs Rome to accept a position with New York's Metropolitan Opera Company under Toscanini. His wife, Anita, plans to join him after the arrival of their precious baby.

Christened Marcus Aurelius, the boy is born amidst the first salvos of the European war. Separated from his family for the duration of hostilities, the Maestro is forced, enemy alien status notwithstanding, to endure the mild discomforts of wartime New York City, while mother and child are left to face an uncertain future. Reconciled to a long separation from the one true love of her life, Anita manages the resulting trials with grit and humor. The experience stirs her to reassess her ancestral values, a process that dramatically transforms not only her world, but also her very being. Through it all, Anita is abetted by two childhood friends: Adriana, a blasphemous and fiercely cynical spinster, and a worldly nun named Eugenia.

Wrenched from the fringes of her relatively humdrum purgatory, Anita is swept into the vortex of a developing tempest and the deceptive calm that follows its conclusion.