THE ARK


          High on a mountain in Eastern Turkey, on the Russian/Turkish border sits an object older than recorded history. It resembles a ship. But is it the ship Noah navigated through the Great Flood?Recent global warming has melted the ice cap on Ararat’s top. NASA photographs from an orbiting satellite have revealed, “Ararat’s Anomaly,” rib lines carved into the clifff-face thousands of years old indicating presence of a ship.

           If “Noah’s Ark” is found it will be the greatest archeological and anthropological discovery of all time. Finding an ancient wooden sea vessel, large enough to hold two of every basic type of land dwelling animal, buried high on Mt. Ararat has dire implications for it would confirm the reliability of the early Biblical record of the human race, it would mean that every land animal (including humans) has descended from the inhabitants of the ark and Darwin’s theory of evolution, the theory that man descended from apes, would have to be abandoned.

           Charles “Bud” Trick, founder of The Creation Institute and spiritual-adviser to President Bush convenes a world summit to select member’s for a drilling and archaeologic expedtion to Ararat on the Russian, Turkish, and terrorist-sponsored Iranian border.  Ararat is the most dangerous place on earth, a hotbed of terrorism. Every one has their own reasons for wanting to see the expedition and recovery effort fail.
Science writer and mountain climber extraordinaire Zach Hall,  whose experiences with rock climbing, ice climbing, and mountaineering on five continents led to magazine articles in Climbing and Natural History as a regular contributing author, is drawn into the expedition by promises of a book deal. The alleged ark is yet to be discovered by a qualified team of scientists but many seemingly valid sources, particularly Zach’s father Dr. Jack Hall  who believes the Ark to be not on Ararat but on Gasherbrum. Once reaching the summit of Gasherbrum, the Hall family fights to stay alive as sabotage, al-Qaidia, and murder plague the doomed expedition. Few survivors leave with the knowledge of a grim secret. Intact in the ice of Gasherbrum lies a craft of extra-terrestrial origin. The Ark.

 

KARAKAL

LOST HORIZON-THE RETURN


           In the far western Himalayas, stands the Inner Sanctuary, twelve majestic peaks roughly the height of Mount Everest some 8,000 meters tall. The highest at 29,128 feet is Mt. Jangangrrful, (Karakal) meaning, “Father of light.”

            Karakal, because of its unpredictable weather, one-hundred mile-per-hour winds, continually falling ice chunks the size of buildings, is located on the border of China, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, a treacherous mountain terrain filled with fierce Uighur tribesmen and bloodthirsty terrorists. Its mile high South Face, the most dangerous climb in the world, is precisely what beckons the IMAGE’ film company and elite alpinists to climb the treacherous peak against all odds.

            In this sequel to James Hilton’s 1934 classic, it is the fall of 1997, some sixty-years after Hugh Conway was shanghaied from Baskul and disappeared without a trace. A team of confident climbers set out to summit the face of the world’s tallest mountain known as Karakal with notable celebrities and journalists. Not long into their journey, the climbers know they are headed for disaster. Rescue teams from all over the world race toward Karakal yet only one of the sixty climbers, Chicago journalist Tim Campbell, survives to face unfounded international accusations as he tells an amazing tale of visiting the mythical Shangri-La.

Did he make up the entire story of Chang Shambhala for fame and profit? "Maybe true, maybe not true. Better you believe.

      

 THE RED BALL  

          When his wife was diagnosed with cancer, during the Streetwalker Killings in 2000, he hit the bottle. When he buried her the next spring, he climbed into it. Administrative leave and psychological counseling came next, before he slipped up and killed someone or got himself killed. About to be drummed out of the Chicago Police Department in 2007, he was suddenly reactivated to Homicide and assigned a Red Ball no less, the murder that matters. Pairing him with a female detective with a reputation, a washed up old fart of a commander, one of the Brass-Monkey's in the department either thinks the case can’t be solved or doesn’t want the case solved. When the shit hit’s the fan, they’re looking for a fall guy and washed up cops like Murphy make the perfect fall guy. 

          Santeria, witchcraft, Catholicism, the church, drugs, human sacrifices, Murphy confronts it all in his last and greatest case as he struggles to find out what is really going on in his city and put an end to it before the evil consumes the city of Chicago. What he uncovers reaches all the way to the upper echelons of the Vatican and a world-wide conspiracy to control the worlds economy. The Red Ball by Kilburn Hall is his most personally revealing book to date. He lays bare the soul of Detective Tom Murphy as he goes in pursuit of the devil, and finds him a decent chap if a little misunderstood. The dark side, after all, stands side by side with the light, waiting for each of us personally to walk up and shake their hands.


  NOTHING PERSONAL

 JUST BUSINESS DARLING

 
 
          In 1996, at the age of forty, Sandy Hill was convicted for bank fraud and implicated in the vicious murders of her cousin Robin O'Hara and O'Hara’s former lovers. Some believe Sandy Hill is innocent; others think her insane. Sandy Hill herself claims to have no memory of any of it.  Dr. John Fountain– an expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness – tries to unlock her memory, what will he find? 
 
     Was Sandy Hill a femme fatale – or a weak and unwilling victim of circumstances? Taunt and compelling, penetrating and wise, Nothing Personal - Just Business Darling is a beautifully crafted work of the imagination that vividly evokes time and place. The novel and Robin O'Hara will continue to haunt the reader long after the final page.
 


THE KILLING 

OF A ROBIN


          His humor, drier than a perfect martini, his demeanor cooler than a bass saxophone, tough enough to win over the mob, cops and media, Nicky Toscani is the perfect ladies man- handsome, smart, a two-fisted straight-shooting-detective who finds himself haunted by the elusive presence of the murder victim in his latest case. As he moves through her Victorian trying to assemble a sense of who she was to discover who might have murdered her, he finds he is drawn to the specter of the woman that begins emerging from all these different sources. Even though there are disturbing elements of opportunism and manipulation hinted at in the hauntingly beautiful portrait by Royo, hanging above her fireplace, he soon realizes he has fallen in love with a dead woman.

          “Never has a woman been so desirable, so electric, and so dangerous to know!” Nicky would confide to me later. If I were to throw an analytical spin onto Nicky’s commentary, I would say that he presents an interesting metaphor for the objectification or idealization of the female subject. This is, however, immediately given a strange twist, given the fact that Robin O'Hara herself was not a sweet, demure, die-away woman.  In reviewing the rough draft and notes of the case given me by Nicky Toscani, and in reading the anecdotes related by her friends, Robin O'Hara was strong and determined and when she does “appear” to Nicky, she is far from being compliant.