Showing results by author "S. L. Kotar" 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

“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...

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...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Hugh Kerr Mystery Series “The Conundrum of the Two-Sided Lawyer” (Book IV in the Series) The “Kerr Gang” is back in Los Angeles where it falls to Ellen to try and reestablish Hugh’s shattered self-image so he can go back to practicing law. One of the first items on the agenda is to re-address the murder case Hugh lost before he fled to Canada on what could have been the final trip of his life. The case, as presented, was uncomplicated. Daniel Jenkins, Hugh’s client, was convicted of the murder of a man named Richard Green by bludgeoning him on the head with a rock. The D.A.,...

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...

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 ...

“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 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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...

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,...

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 Hugh Kerr Mystery Series “The Conundrum of the Absconded Attorney” (Book II in the Series) The story begins in December 1955 with defense attorney Hugh Kerr pondering his fate. Stinging from the loss of a murder trial he believes he should have won, and still emotionally shattered from his own recent brush with the law that saw him and his private secretary, Ellen Thorne, running from the police on an elaborate and grisly homicide charge, he questions the foundations upon which he has based his life. This takes him to a subject rarely broached, even to himself: the fact Christmas ...