The Seal’s Lair is a fast-paced historical fiction tale that is set in motion when a corpse is discovered on a beautiful La Jolla, California beach. The body is the link that binds together disparate characters, who come from multiple locations, to include far off Australia. Occurring primarily in 1969, it has relevance for today with its themes of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, hate crime, identity theft, flawed law enforcement, and fake news. Nothing really is actually what it appears to be. This is evident when Margaret Starmont, a widow of distinction, is called from her Manhattan home to identify the body, supposedly her son, Jordan. No, Jordan is still alive, living a counterculture life in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco! After this startling fact, Margaret becomes beholden to a cerebral San Diego Police homicide detective, Damon Broadbent, who is out to solve the case of a lifetime. This is more than a misidentified body because it is compounded by a lurking Nazi fugitive in possession of the unthinkable. Friedrich Vogel was one of four Nazi scientists on board German U-Boat 234 when it surrendered at a US Navy base on May 8, 1945. He escapes with a satchel full of American dollars and a diabolical weapon—a canister of uranium. Fast forward to twenty-four years later, living with impunity under the alias of David Percival, he is a successful avocado grower among the rolling hills of Fallbrook in northwest San Diego County. It is time to strike! To achieve his goal of extending Nazi hatred, he recruits a paramilitary force, composed of disenchanted US Marines and Navy servicemen, one of whom is a navy seal. The latter’s on-base quarters will be the operational den of iniquity—The Seal’s Lair. Percival is now the object of a manhunt by both the FBI and Broadbent’s police force, who are at odds to nab him. Two other central characters of the story are found in Perth, Australia: Josh Hannigan and Sela Danby. Hannigan is also a fugitive who comes to the Land Down Under with a stolen identity: Rex Murtaugh. He has a chance encounter with Danby, who is the lynchpin that connects her to Jordan Starmont, who is secretly working for the FBI and to the evil machinations of David Percival. To explode the uranium, Percival needs a detonator. This device brings Hannigan, Danby, and Ian Bright, Percival’s looney love child, to southern California for the climatic conclusion on San Diego Bay. Filled with twists, turns, unforeseen events, and incredible coincidences, The Seal’s Lair will keep the reader guessing and glued to its pages with a thrilling flow, accented by romantic sparks that fly between four of the book’s principals.

talented musician and an expert photographer. His photography career spanned nearly a half-century and produced thousands of photographs and negatives. Following his death in 1995, members of the family decided to gather as many images as possible, especially the early ones. However, the search that the family conducted for the negatives and photos that chronicle our father's photographic career resulted in finding materials that are equally emblematic of his role as a minister of the Gospel. We found an unexpected treasure in the copies of the notes that he used to construct his sermons. These hand-written notes were probably also used when he preached. Many were dated and cited the church where they were delivered. The earliest one dated to 1948 with the last ones ending in 1988. Surprisingly many of the messages he conveyed have a timeless nature to them as the issues which he addressed are still relevant! This small volume is also enriched by copies of photos taken from our fathers collection and scans of some of the original notes. The majority of the sermons in this book were preached during Dad's pastorate of the Cold Spring Baptist Church in Buffalo, New York. He was the pastor of Cold Springs, located at Verplanck and Woodlawn Avenues, from about 1956 to 1961. During the latter part of his tenure at the Church his sermons show signs of mounting frustration and difficulties with a faction of the congregation. I leave the analysis of this period of my fathers ministry to the reader, but I think that these sermons provide an interesting picture of the management problems that many ministers encounter in their positions as spiritual as well as organizational leaders. Finally, we were extremely fortunate that these papers werent over-looked and destroyed. I have to give special acknowledgement to my brothers, James, John and Jerry for their foresight in gathering these sermons, the negatives and photographs for preservation. Initially, I transcribed these sermons/notes and saved them to be shared with the family. It's taken over 15 years but finally they can be passed down to a generation, who were not even alive when our father died. However, I believe that these papers represent not just a family legacy as they illustrate a tradition of the Black ministry. Like so many of his peers, our father was an itinerant minister, who answered his call to ministry while keeping his day job (in my father's case, day jobs). This little book offers a glimpse into the life of a Black man, born more than a century ago, who persevered against the challenges of his day to succeed in several chosen fields.

In a world no longer blessed with virtue, there remains a place among the moving icebergs, cradled between the twilight of dreams, yet hidden from the nightmare of man. It is a sanctuary that has miraculously clung to its innocence, a faraway place, a place called SEALSSONG. A dying girl is about to find out that there are more things in life to fear than death itself. Born with gifts beyond that of natural reasoning, young Emma finds herself spirited away by an evil relative desperately seeking out her angelic powers in order to fulfill a most diabolical prophecy. Her aunt Decara, a tear-stealing villainess on a dastardly quest to find a sacred teardrop housed inside a purple stone, possessing enormous powers, will first have to find one orphaned baby seal named Miracle, who must learn to survive in a fantastic world confronting deadly seal hunters and the bloodshed they bring. For it is he who now inherits the powerful, tear, and it is he whom Emma soon comes to realize—that she must kill!

Winner of the National Book Award This bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing. The Arctic is a perilous place. Only a few species of wild animals can survive its harsh climate. In this modern classic, Barry Lopez explores the many-faceted wonders of the Far North: its strangely stunted forests, its mesmerizing aurora borealis, its frozen seas. Musk oxen, polar bears, narwhal, and other exotic beasts of the region come alive through Lopez’s passionate and nuanced observations. And, as he examines the history and culture of its indigenous communities, along with parallel narratives of intrepid, often underprepared and subsequently doomed polar explorers, Lopez drives to the heart of why the austere and formidable Arctic is also a constant source of breathtaking beauty, mystery, and wonder. Written in prose as pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is a timeless mediation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and to haunt our imaginations.

Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA, and photographer Wolfe seek to advance public education about human-induced climate change in a combination of arresting images and lucid explanations of the science of global warming and the pursuit of global cooperation in adopting new, sustainable ways of living. With contributions by 16 scientists, engineers, writers, activists, and photographers, Schmidt and Wolfe address a host of observable changes, from the melting of ice and permafrost at the poles to the rising of sea levels in cities such as Venice and Miami ... -- Excerpt, Booklist

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