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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

The theme of this novel focuses on the tragic, near fatal shooting of police lieutenant Hank Wade which was developed in the previous book, “The Conundrum of the Jettisoned Jury.” Interestingly, when attorney Hugh Kerr accepts a completely unrelated case, a severe conflict develops within the Kerr Gang. The strain of the unresolved shooting of their adopted father and his slow, complicated recovery, combined with the uncertainty over the “jettisoned jury” create tensions which finally threaten to fracture the close relationships established between Hugh, Jack Merrick and the Wades. ...

“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...

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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...

“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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

The Conundrum of the Decapitated Detective Hugh Kerr Mystery Series Book I The corpse in the morgue had been beheaded, the hands severed and the bottoms of the feet scorched, making identification next to impossible. The man's identity hinges on personal belongings found near the body, and the formality of having his two best friends view the remains and agree with the name on the driving license. Failure to do so would consign the mangled body to a nameless grave; begrudging a positive I.D. would be admitting the detective was really dead. Neither option is acceptable. Not to Hugh Kerr, ...

It was not the maiden voyage of the intergalactic prototype space vessel, merely a sixty-day test flight. The ship did not even have a name; she was merely called ONE, a designation without dignity. The skeleton crew participating her last “assignment” – that which would precede the actual mission – were derisively referred to as “crash dummies,” meaning they would be expected to step aside when the actual captain and crew assumed their rightful positions for the multi-year mission. Nothing was expected to go wrong. When the unexpected happened – when the ship lost the ability...

“skull and cRossBones” Summary Escaping Civil War-torn Richmond, Captain Rudy Blake and Rose Theodore, the newest member of the blockage-runner Reprobate, sail for England. During the voyage Rudy and Rose’s relationship deepen as he has the opportunity of teaching her shipcraft, armament and the nuances of sailing. Working together to thwart a plot by the notorious Captain Janey, the pair begin a “conquest” of Victorian England that includes establishing Rose as his chandler, the purchase of the Blake House and a foray into high society where a spirited drinking contest proves ...

Shy, almost to the point of disabling, Sebastian “Nox” Knox, the elder son and heir to his late mother’s estate, had to prove he was successful in his chosen position as a musician before age 30, or lose the quarter of a million dollar inheritance to his half-brother, Arthur. The youth stated out well, rising to the position of a virtuoso in a major orchestra, but a series of false rumors forced him to abandon that position. A growing lack of confidence led Nox to the life of a recluse and although he continued composing, fear prevented him from showing his work to others. Hugh Kerr, ...

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...