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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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,...

“Wolf Eyes”Summary When Ian MacDhui lost his sheep farm to the Conglomerate, the Scottish widower knew it was time to fulfil his late wife’s dream and immigrate to the United States with their two young daughters. Visiting on a tourist visa, they quickly discover that the New York of 1965 was not what they envisioned. Outcasts because of their “foreignness,” Meg and Storm want nothing more than to return home. Realizing, however, they have no home to crawl back to, Ian must keep up their spirits while smothering his own sinking emotions. Desperate to find a “respectable job” ...

“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...

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 ...

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, ...

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...

Summary “The Conundrum of the Blundering Bear” Tragedy strikes while Hugh and Ellen Kerr are on a working holiday in the Big Bear region of California. While returning to the lodge late at night, Ellen swerves to avoid what she believes to be a bear standing in the road. The car plummets down a gully, trapping her inside. She manages to escape with the assistance of a stranger but then faces criminal charges from the local sheriff. Complicating matters, when a child is reported missing, Hugh and Jack are called upon to help search for her. This entangles them in a murder case when the ...

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...

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 ...

“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...

The holiday season is upon the Kerr Gang and what Ellen wants more than anything is to have a family photograph taken with Santa Claus to celebrate her daughter’s first Christmas. Amid the seasonal disturbances and potential disasters which threaten to ruin the holiday, she manages to gather everyone together at the local department store’s North Pole. Before the photographs are completed, however, the “Jolly Old Elf” playing Father Christmas suddenly turns red, begins to choke and within seconds, dies in front of them. A subsequent homicide investigation reveals he was killed by a ...

“The Conundrum of the Girl with the Emerald Eyes”The Hugh Kerr Mystery Series XVSummary With the arrival of a new addition to the Kerr family, both Hugh and Ellen pledged that they would take three months off to spend time with the baby. That promise did not last one week. Although officially on maternity leave, when a schoolteacher appears at the office asking for her help in making a decision on whether or not she should use her retirement money to invest in a flower shop, thus fulfilling her lifelong dream, Ellen agrees to accept the assignment with the assistance of Mary Wade. ...

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. ...

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...