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

“Arrow Song” In 1968, the newly-opened Kamer/Jackson Institute represented a creative and innovative approach to psychiatric medicine, combining the talents of Robert Kamer and Samuel Jackson, two physicians who dreamed of challenging conventional therapy by offering new approaches to the treatment of the mentally and physically handicapped of all ages and incomes. For Dr. Kamer, the K/J I had an additional and all-consuming purpose: providing a school where his brother, Toby, would thrive. Matters are taken out of Rob and Sam’s hands, however, as Toby’s development is guided in a ...

The Believer: New Beginnings Book 1 Dr. Robert Kamer, the world renown psychiatrist and financier, had a secret very few of his colleagues could even guess, and he was willing to go to extreme measures to keep it that way. He was a boy genius from a wealthy family. With a gift for languages and a photographic memory, he graduated college and medical school well before his contemporaries even finished high school. Rob's one love was his younger brother, Toby. Born with a learning disability, it was Toby's condition that motivated the young genius to pursue a career in psychiatry. Rob's ...

Although short-staffed, the Kamer/Jackson Institute continues to admit students that require all the time, skill and dedication Drs. Robert Kamer and Samuel Jackson can give them. Included among these newcomers are a boy diagnosed as suffering from “failure to thrive,” a man experiencing the devastating effects of drug withdrawal and a convicted arsonist described by a judge as “inveterate.” An interview with a psychiatrist applying for a job goes terribly wrong and “Mother” Mary Schaeffer must try and hold things together, while Sam’s therapy for Toby includes the services of...

Hugh and Ellen Kerr promised themselves this time they would get it right. Not only was it their daughter’s first Halloween celebration, they were going to hold the party in Lodi, California, far from the Los Angeles debacle which had ruined last year’s celebration. Everything seemed to be going their way when they discovered an old mansion they could rent and transform into a spooky haunted house. The owner of the property, Lob Finnian, a former Major League baseball player, seemed eager to help and with the assistance of family and friends, decorations and Halloween-themed games were ...

When Captain Robert Andrew, recently retired from forty years active service in the army, walks into the law office of Hugh Kerr and Associate, Ellen Kerr has grave misgivings about him. His legal quest is simple enough: is he legally responsible for his father if the elder Andrew could no longer care for himself? Offered his legal options, Robert states his belief his father, Ian Andrew, is in need of professional care. He asks Hugh to substantiate his opinion and after interviewing Ian, the Kerrs are reluctantly forced to agree. After obtaining a power of attorney for Robert, who promptly...

After the explosion that nearly killed them, Rudy and Rose take refuge at the home of Nancy Ivey, an old friend of Rose’s from her days as a young woman in New York. While Rudy recuperates from severely burned hands, they begin a storytelling session which takes them to a St. Patrick Days celebration after John Paul’s death and the sale of his ship the Gemini. As that story ends, Rose, dressed as Rupert, leaves the home to deliver a message to their crew waiting off-shore, warning them that trouble is afoot and to depart for two weeks while leaving them behind. Returning to the past of ...

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...

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...

The Conundrum of the Loveless Marriage This sixth book in the Hugh Kerr Mystery series, takes a dark turn to touch on some very sensitive topics, especially for the newlyweds. Hugh and Ellen are trying to start fresh following their recent marriage and several highly emotional personal and professional events. The first day back in the office they are confronted with an unscheduled client asking very real questions about her rights as a married woman with respect to boundaries of the marriage bed. The law with respect to marital relations falls strongly in the man's favor, and Hugh could ...

It couldn’t be true, could it? Surely, not in a sane, work-a-day world could a man billing himself as the “Mystic Seer predict the outcome of the stock market. Trends; ups and downs; which companies to buy and which to sell. And yet, over the course of nine years, Jason Holloway, d/b/a the Mystic Seer had done just that. My name is Kimbo: A. Kimbo, to be specific. People often shorten my first name to Andy. I’m a crime reporter for the Carry All News Service (CANS). At the present, my small corner of it is based in London. I got the crummy assignment to investigate how this phony ...

“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 ...

A knock came on the door in the dead of night. On the verge of Civil War, such a summons meant trouble and danger. To ignore it offered momentary reprieve for the Ward family: it also meant shirking duty. Such was not in their make-up, for the Wards, otherwise known as the landlocked "Kansas Pirates," had taken the buccaneer's oath to protect one another, and, by association, the oppressed, against tyranny and injustice.Their help was urgently needed to guide runaway slaves from "Bleeding Kansas" across the river to safer ground. Barbara Nelander-Ward, former first mate aboard the Bottom ...

Hugh Kerr Mystery Series The Conundrum of Shooting Fish in a Barrel Book XIV This adventure begins with Ellen's best friend's request for help. Judy’s phone call alters the couple’s plans for the weekend. Instead of relaxing and preparing for the expected arrival of their first child, Hugh, and the very pregnant Ellen Kerr rush to northern Los Angeles County where a major Western movie location is situated. The excitement of being on an actual production set is seriously hampered by the unexpected and tragic death of one of the picture’s headliners. Lieutenant Hank Wade is already at ...

“Shepherd of the Kingdom” Shepherd Kingston wanted fame and fortune and when the young photographer found the opportunity to photograph the beautiful and elusive Wall Street wizard, Ericka Elvina, he thought he had discovered his chance. Warned by his friend and mentor, Abraham Trent, a professor of mysticism and the ancient black arts, that Ms. Elvina was not who she seemed to be, Shepherd ignores his “superstitious nonsense” and agrees to accompany her back to the mysterious kingdom apparently unknown to the civilized world. Realizing, to his horror, the kingdom has not progressed...

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...

Back in London, Kimbo is stuck doing midnight duty at the CANS office when he receives a peculiar call. Someone is asking for the time. Annoyed at the seeming inanity of the question he is about to hang up when the man explains all electronic devices throughout the city have failed. Suspecting no more than a mundane power outage, Kimbo nevertheless decides to investigate. Immediately confirming the caller’s story, he finds cars stalled at intersections and the city darkened by a total lack of electric lighting. Intrigued, he traces the extent of the power outage, discovering it covered an...

In the sequel to Target’d, this novel follows the crew of the crippled star cruiser Target six months after the initial disaster which had killed the majority of the 200 crewmembers aboard, leaving the survivors with only limited power and ineffectual defense mechanisms. With only minimal ability to grow plants in a makeshift hydroponics unit, their food supply consists of nothing more than nutritional tablets discovered aboard in an undelivered supply consignment for colonists on a distant planet. Originally determining these tablets would last the few remaining survivors for decades, ...

WondRous BackdropsSummary They needed a fresh start; of that neither Rudy Blake nor Rose Theodore disagreed. But where to begin? With the ink still wet on her Master’s papers, Captain R. B. Theodore could have chosen to take the Lady Rose back to sea but an undercurrent of doubt troubled her. The Civil War was over, but reconstruction in the South had not gone the way either had hoped. With a Southerner in the White House, there was every reason to believe reunification meant a return to the Old Ways. Slavery was abolished but the hatreds remained. Northern cotton Factors paid little, if ...

“Blue Moon”Summary The Indian legend stated that a red-haired white boy, born of earthquake and comet in a month with two full moons, would save the tribes along the Mighty Mississippi from oppression by the white-skinned invaders from the east. As the first steamboat to navigate the western waters, under the charter of Robert Fulton, himself, made its appearance, the early pioneers were terrified by the noise and the smoke. Calling it the devil’s invention in superstitious awe, and perhaps more accurately, a “floating teakettle,” the magnificent boat traversed the unknown with a ...

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 ...