Showing results by author "J. E Gessler" in All Categories

Life is complicated. No one needed to tell Hugh and Ellen Kerr that the addition of a baby to their family would be simple. Yet, neither could have anticipated the complications. Asking Jack to babysit was the first problem, immeasurably complicated when they lose the services of Mary Wade after Hugh and Lieutenant Wade get into a bitter argument over the way a confession was obtained from an under-aged boy. Distraught over the idea of losing Ellen as his legal assistant and confronted with his belief no child should be prosecuted as an adult, Hugh takes on the case of the youthful murder ...

SUMMARY The Hugh Kerr Mystery Series XXI “The Conundrum of the End of the World” It began as just another missing person's case. Janice Slattery came to the Merrick Detective Agency seeking help in finding her sister, Joyce St. James, who had disappeared a week ago. Tempted to pass it off as just another young woman who arrived in Hollywood seeking fame and fortune and then dropped out of touch to hide her failure, Janice argues this situation is different. Joyce was a dependable bank clerk who had lived in Southern California all her life. It wasn't like her to vanish, although she had...

Racehorses, a miracle cream and murder are inextricably involved as Hugh Kerr is asked to defend the scientist who created a formula capable of healing previously incurable wounds on animals as varied as dogs and thoroughbreds. Although it would appear unlikely that anyone would dispute the value of such a cream, the actual ownership of the formula, its eventual, if any, commercial value, and the wider applications of its use create various factions who find that greed leads to murder as the only solution to the problem. When a prominent thoroughbred breeder who has witnessed the “miracle...

“prioR Battles”After running the Federal blockade and returning to England, Rudy and Rose have three days to spend together before he is compelled to return across the Atlantic. To use that time together in a meaningful way, Rose requests Rudy tell her of his youth. Beginning with the tragic circumstances leading to his expulsion from VMI, his return to Charleston and subsequent disinheritance, he then details for her, in words so vivid she experiences his adventures alongside him, his voyage to San Francisco and foray into the gold fields as a ‘49er. The flashback, seen through the ...

“captains RB”RB XIISummary After completing the task of transferring Rudy’s wartime fortune from French banks to a company Rose has established in Bombay, they are freed from immediate worry. Although Rudy’s health and his repeated denial that he can never again captain a ship continues to worry her, she is determined to prove to his crew that he will again be “the man he was.” Unexpectedly, Rudy provides the means for her to put a plan into action when he purchases a steamboat in her name which he christens the Lady Rose. Making it clear he will not command a steamer from the ...

The explosion came close to killing him, and as Rudy Blake lay on the ground feeling the rest of his life ebb away, he comprehended one of two things would happen. Either he would find Rose Theodore’s lifeless body and join her spirit in the afterworld, or the gods would spare her – and consequently him – because they were not yet done manipulating their favorite plaything. Proving one side stronger, or perhaps simply more willful than the other, it is Rose who saves Rudy. Realizing he has been badly burned and perhaps suffered broken bones from plummeting down the stairs in the ...

They said the boy was haunted and the townspeople of Lawrence, Kansas, wanted nothing to do with widower Seth Ward or his two children. In 1857, superstitions run high.Left alone to raise Patricia and Peter, Seth has been isolated from his neighbors since the death of his wife from a lingering, malignant disease. Nearly at his wits end, a young woman appears in response to an advertisement for help.Barbara Nelander dared brave the terror of a dead woman's ghost and the haunting of her son because she was not like other women. Born in Nova Scotia, "Nelander," as she was called, had served as...

“RamBlings”RB X The war fought on the battlefield had ended but the real fight was about to begin: that which might be described as, “To the winner belongs the spoils.” Federal agents had arrived in England to go through the bank accounts of those whose allegiance had sided with the late Confederacy – claiming their war profiteering as restitution. Realizing if they did not act quickly, Rudy Blake’s fortune, earned as a blockade-runner and entrepreneur, would be forfeit, Rose Theodore takes the wounded man to Liverpool where they begin the arduous and dangerous task of securing ...

“Ask him about John Paul.” If one sentence stuck in Rose Theodore’s mind, that was it. Innocuous by itself, within those five words lay a world of accusation, charged against Captain Blake not only by the speaker, First Officer D’Artagnan, but held in resentment by the entire crew of the Reprobate. Although the un-Civil War had ended and Rudy returned to England, the horrors of his service in the artillery lingered. Professing “not to be the man I was,” Rose is more than willing to give him the time he needed to recover. Not so the federal agents who have swarmed over England ...

The ReproBate Saga“time and tRouBle”RB XVSummary Time and trouble wait for no man. The time had been set for Rudy Blake’s execution and the Federal authorities in charge of the city knew there would be trouble if the hanging did not take place. The provost-marshal, had been given an assignment: find a charge and make it stick. It was finally decided Blake would be tried for his participation in a duel dating back to 1849 when facing a man on the “Field of Honor” was illegal. The trial had been short and to the point. One month from the day Rudy was found guilty, he was to be taken...

What is a dream but a fight against the odds? A struggle to rise above the ordinary and express a creativity that encapsulates the soul. When love is shared, that emotion becomes a dual consciousness. As a small child, Seth Ward had seen a valley filled with wild strawberry plants and imagined that one day he would own that land and cultivate those plants. Growing to adulthood and facing the harsh reality of raising two small children in Bloody Kansas of the 1850's, however, life was reduced to dreary survival and dreams were tucked away into the recesses of yesteryear.When love and ...

Atlanta has fallen and Rudy Blake has left the city, penniless and without hope. Following in the footsteps of the ragtag Confederate Army, he comes upon an officer and makes the startling announcement he wishes to join up. Proving his prowess with a rifle, he signs his name on the enlistment form and is assigned to the sharpshooters. Here, Private Blake gets his first taste of what war really means: deprivation, fear, loss, death and a despair deeper than any he has ever experienced. After a particularly dispiriting encounter with Federal forces, he is overheard commenting on the lack of ...

Daring. Resourceful. Devil-may-care. Moody. Superstitious. Gambler. Confederate blockade-runner. Captain Rudy Blake was many things to many people, but there was one descriptive word upon which they all agreed. Reprobate. Captain Blake not only reveled in the nickname, he had the audacity to name his ship after himself. The Reprobate. Not a smoke-belching steamer but a swift, sleek four-masted schooner capable of outrunning the Federal gunboats and slipping behind those dangerous, ponderous vessels to deliver what the wealthy citizens of Charleston most sought: luxuries. A man who swore ...

“carRying Battlescars” The tall, gaunt man stood at the door and for a moment, Rose Theodore did not recognize him. Then, with a cry of joy tempered by shock she welcomed home her long-lost wayfarer, Rudy Blake. Civil War had done much to Rudy. Gone was the cocksure reprobate, the captain who had dared run the Federal blockade, the businessman who owned Southern railroads and numerous profit-generating enterprises. In his place was a broken man who had gone for a soldier: a man who served his country but not the Cause; an artillerist who had imbibed too many defeats and seen too much ...

“New Beginnings:Book IV Peas in a Pod” Summary How do you put your life together after an unimaginable tragedy? How to rediscover and restructure your identity? How to find purpose out of chaos? Dr. Robert Kamer is forced to face those questions after the devastating events involving his brother at the Kamer/Jackson Institute. Finding no answers at the K/J I, he flees to the one person in the world who can help him. In so doing, he leaves his partner, Dr. Samuel Jackson, behind to face not only his own personal agonies but the suspicion and distrust of the staff he is compelled to ...

The expression "holy revenge" might seem a misnomer, as it is often believed that vengeance belongs to the Lord. When a race of people were cruelly and habitually enslaved, however, freedom meant more than emancipation: it offered the opportunity to redress wrongs in a more earthly court. The man called "Red" arrived in Hellhole with an aura of trouble surrounding him. Immediately sensing his presence meant bloodshed, Marshal Kiley ordered him out of town but not before allowing him to have his wounds treated by the doctor, Fiz Ward. Even more intuitive than the lawman, Dr. Ward is quick to...