Mostrando resultados por autor "J.E. Gessler" en Todas las categorías

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...

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...

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 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 ...

Catman He was every man; he was no man. Or, was he a man, at all? The tall, straggly individual who came out of the pouring rain holding a dead kitten in his hand to accuse the Mercedes driver of running over his cat, had that odd look about him which made the driver think he was not quite right in the head. Abandoning man and beast along the roadside, he sped away, glad to be rid of the apparition. But was he? Although it couldn’t be possible, the driver saw the face of the man in his rear view mirror. Less probable, once returning home, he couldn’t shake the feeling the Catman had ...

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 ...

“to Richmond or Bust” People called it the Civil War, but it was decidedly uncivil. Newspaper reporters styled it, “The War of Brother against Brother,” but the wounds cut far deeper than that. Southerners referred to the years 1861-1865 as “The War of Northern Aggression.” It was “Mr. Lincoln’s War,” “the War over Slavery,” “the War to save the Union.” It was everything, in fact, but, “The War to End all Wars.” Rudy Blake went to war to die but he did not die. Instead, he suffered through one soul-shattering defeat after another, until his private world shrunk...

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 perfect, if delayed, honeymoon of famous Los Angeles defense attorney Hugh Kerr and his wife Ellen Kerr nee Thorne, is abruptly shortened when tragedy befalls the Kerr Gang. Lieutenant Hank Wade, the newlywed’s adopted father, is shot in cold blood directly outside the police station. Hugh is literally forced into the center of this very personal nightmare when Richard Baldwin, the man accused of the heinous crime, demands Kerr take his case or he threatens to defend himself. This puts district attorney Bartholomew Bond on the spot because Baldwin is a wealthy, influential man and his...

Hugh Kerr, famous Los Angles defense attorney, his new wife and longtime personal assistant Ellen, their "adopted" parents, Lt. Hank Wade and his wife Mary, Hugh's best friend and private investigator, Jack Merrick, along with the LA District Attorney, B.B. Bond all belong to the exclusive "Hugh Kerr Gang". Good times or bad, the gang members all support each other. The Conundrum of the Executed Defendant pushes the boundaries of both good times and bad. The Gang has some fun designing a fixed raffle, so one of their own will be the predetermined winner of a much-needed home improvement ...

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 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 post-Civil War era in the American West was a troubled, turbulent time. With hatreds still seething, men often took it upon themselves to enforce their own brand of justice. When they did, it brought them in conflict with those few who attempted to apply a standardized set of rules and regulations to a rawboned civilization. Convincing men who did not fall into the category of outlaws but who were, rather, self-appointed vigilantes to follow the law was not a simple task, yet that was what Marshal Claw Kiley faced when he confronted a gang of mountain men from West Virginia, out to ...

Hellhole, Kansas, was no ordinary town. Like other places, it was comprised of desultory businesses, saloons, livery stable, bank, and clapboard homes, clinging to life by their figurative fingernails. What set this hider town apart from other post-Civil War outcroppings of civilization was that it also housed a United States Marshal's office. Hellhole was known to the authorities in Topeka as the place where lawmen went to die. Claw Kiley had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, being discharged, as he had entered, a private. That fact hardly qualified him for a Federal position,...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

“Target’d” Summary Never was a ship more aptly named. While on a routine mission to the outer quadrant of the galaxy, the star cruiser Target is struck by an unknown force, immediately killing two-thirds of the crew. Those remaining include Commander Joshua Terry, who assumes command after the death of the captain. Discovering only four of the bridge crew alive and two of those critically wounded, he begins a search of the ship for the remainder of the survivors. Along those few he finds Brian Hardy, the ship’s resident minister and unofficial guru, and Helen Fitzgerald, a language ...

Mr. Harold Poxie, owner of CANS news service, is coming to London. When editor Sweet McGraw threatens to introduce him to Gypsy if Kimbo doesn’t take the unappealing assignment to cover the sudden death of Mr. Goldfinch, the one of the company’s best clients, he reluctantly agrees. Anything to get her away from the old man’s clutches. As anticipated, the funeral is dull and dreary, with few useful quotes to gather for the obituary. One, however, strikes him as odd: the complaint from an elderly woman that the body appears desiccated. Waiting until the mourners have departed, Kimbo ...