Larry G

In a world where disguises and discretion are the norm, and where one admission could unravel a life, a killer has struck, and a man is dead. No one wants to come forward to say what they saw or what they know - including the woman heading the investigation: Detective Helen Grace. Helen knew the victim. And the victim knew her - better than anyone else. And when the murderer strikes again, Helen must decide how many more lines she's willing to cross to bring in a devious and elusive serial killer.

Detective Helen Grace has never seen such destruction. Six fires in 24 hours. Two people dead. Several more injured. It's as if someone wants to burn the city to the ground.... With the whole town on high alert, Helen and her team must sift through the rubble to find the arsonist, someone whose thirst for fire - and control - is reducing entire lives to ashes.

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth.

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

Values, integrity, character, and ethics have distinct properties. There are rules you can't break, and lines that you can't cross and remain true. These bits of news and short stories and anecdotes and metaphors and parables and allegories simply remind us that the lines exist. Nothing preachy, merely the opportunity to consider your edges. Rather than following the crowd by seeing how close you can get to a line, why not embrace your values more fully, live with greater integrity, develop a superior character, and always act with unswerving ethics?