His father is dead. Grandfather has Alzheimer’s. Mom can just
pay the bills. And, Bill Taylor can’t run track and cross-country anymore.
Could it get any worse? How about being threatened by an ex-con, fighting with
a football player twice his size, and being involved with two murders?
One day, running back home from school Bill was
nearly run over and accosted by a strange man. “Tell the old man he damn well
better give up some of that the money. I want my cut and I’m coming to get it.”
Thus begins a search for three million dollars
missing from a Brinks’ robbery twenty years in the past. Billy makes friends
with Sarah Seeley, a classmate as impetuous as she was attractive. Sarah and
Bill put the pieces of the puzzle together relying on a few clues and the
fragmented memory of the addled brain of Gramps. Billy’s life gets even more
complicated after encounters with the mafia who also have an interest in the
money. Then there’s this problem with a serial killer. Billy is faced with one
paramount question: will he and Sarah be the next victims?
REVIEW BY: Arianna, age 13 years, 1 month
I absolutely loved the mystery in this book!
My favorite character was Sarah because once she got something into her head, nothing stopped her! She is determined!
My favorite part is when Sarah came up with the romantic idea of Mrs. Patterson and Tom because she is right.
The plot was fast-paced and detailed.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes books about buried treasure, the mob and adventure.
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 13 and up.
I rose late Sunday morning, feeling sorry for myself.
Granddad was getting up and I angrily swung out of bed. Had
to help with Gramps so I got him and myself ready for another dull day. Mom
beamed brighter than the sunlight streaming in
“Hi, honey, how was your night?”
Annoyed that she seemed insensitive to my foul mood, I
snapped at her.
“Oh, great Mom. Let’s see, I cleaned up Gramps ‘cause he
can’t do it himself anymore. Then I laid on my bed since there’s nothing else
to do. Oh, I did listen to the game on the radio and Rick Henson, Sarah’s
boyfriend, you know the one I’m so much better than, well he scored three
touchdowns. Good for him. Good for Sarah since she cheered each one. Great
night,
She was silent as she put blueberry pancakes in front me,
real blueberries, and I realized I was a certified jerk. Gramps wasn’t the
reason I was upset and the rest of what I said was
just cheap shots. I was upset because I am such an
incompetent dweeb when it comes to girls. I pushed the pancake around the
plate.
She put her hand on my shoulder. “I know taking care of
Gramps isn’t easy. But, we do what we have to do.”
“It’s not Gramps. It’s other things.”
“Like what?” she asked waving the red cape. I exploded
again.
“Like I want to go back to Florida, Mom. I don’t like it
here. I don’t fit in.”
Mom went back to the sink, her back to me, busying herself
with the dishes. Her body was as rigid as two inch thick piece of oak plank.
Her words, however, came out soft and
“I know it was unfair to you, Billy. But, we had to do it.”
Before I could dig my hole any deeper, Gramps shuffled into
the kitchen. “Pancakes, Abby? Pancakes. Yum.”
He sat down smiling at me. He was a pain, but when he was in
a good mood… well, you just felt better somehow. “I’ll get some for you,
Gramps.”
I got a plate for him. Mom stayed at the sink, her shoulders
slumping down, chin to her chest over the sink. She was taking a long time to
clean the sink. I stepped behind her.
She said nothing, but she wiped her nose with her sleeve.
Great. Suspended, no girlfriend, no friends at all (I refused to count Jerry as
a friend when I was in this mood), and I’ve
succeeded in making my mother cry. Another banner day for
William Taylor.
When Mom finally finished scrubbing the sink, she saw my
full plate, and ordered me to eat my pancakes. With granddad slopping pancakes
into his mouth and Mom bossing me around what passed for normalcy returned to
the cabin.
After she cleared the plates off the table, she studied me.
I looked away, momentarily closing my eyes. A lecture was coming.
“Billy, you’ve got to give this town a chance. Part of the
problem is you. If you don’t make an effort to get out with your friends, you
don’t have a chance here because you don’t give yourself a chance. In fact,
Sarah is the only the friend you’ve ever invited to the house. I’m home all
day, so why don’t you call up somebody else and do something with them.” I bit
my tongue hard, stood up and looked at frost on the ground, just now glistening
as it melted. I didn’t want to tell Mom I had no friends. This early morning
brush fire would turn into a raging forest fire if I told her the truth. So, I
simply pushed the problem to later.
“Maybe you’re right, Mom. I think I’ll first just go for a
run this morning. Then I’ll try to catch up with someone. Gotta catch up on
some school work too.”
Mom tilted her head and scrutinized me with narrowed eyes.
That I capitulated so quickly made her suspicious. She knows me too well. Her
mouth opened to say something when a
knock at the door diverted her attention.
I attended college at Ohio Wesleyan where I
struggled with physics. Having made so many mistakes in college with physics,
there weren’t too many left to make and I did quite well at graduate school at
Purdue.
I worked for nearly twenty years at Choate Rosemary Hall, an
exclusive boarding school in the heart of Connecticut. More often than not,
students arrived in limousines. There was a wooded area by the upper athletic
fields where I would take my children for a walk. There, under a large oak
tree, stories about the elves would be weaved into the surrounding forest.
Returning to my home town to help with a father struggling with
Alzheimer’s, the only job open was at a prison. There I taught an entirely
different clientele whose only interaction with limousines was stealing them. A
year later Alfred State College hired me to teach physics. I happily taught
there for over ten years.
My wife’s boss, the superintendent of a rural school in western
New York, begged me to teach physics and earth science. Helping young high
school students was particularly appealing to me at this point in my career and
the salary was more than reasonable, so I find myself happily teaching at Mt
Morris Central School.
Five years ago, my wife pestered me about putting to “pen” some of
the stories which I had created for the children and other relatives. I started
thinking about a young boy and a white deer, connected, yet apart. Ideas were
shuffled together, characters created and the result was the Return of the
White Deer. This book was published by the Martin Sisters.
Years ago I gave a lecture on evolution. What, I wondered, would
be the next step? Right away I realized that silicon ‘life’ had considerable
advantages over mortal man. Later this idea emerged as the exciting and
disturbing story called Reap the Whirlwind.
Two years ago I stumbled upon an old article in the local paper
about a Brinks’ robbery in 1992.
Apparently over ten million dollars were stolen and most of it was never
recovered. Although the mafia was peripherally involved in the heist, it was
unlikely they took the missing millions. This was the seed which has now grown
into the young adult novel, The Runner and the Robber.
I have many other stories inside my mind, fermenting… waiting
patiently for the pen. Perhaps someday I will even write about those elves
which still inhabit the woods in the heart of Connecticut.
The Ebook can be purchased for $0.99 during the
tour.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and
RAFFLECOPTER CODE
Robert Sells will be
awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via
rafflecopter during the tour, and a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a
randomly drawn host. Additionally, Goddess Fish Productions will be awarding a
$5 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn host.
