The Angel's Chair

Two men and a woman who were once intimate friends are forced to revisit a tragic secret from forty-five years ago. One of the men is an Episcopal priest facing the end of his calling; the other, a man with a checkered past who has finally found his way; and the woman they both loved who is running from her past seemingly without direction - three people facing their sin and possible redemption. Their paths become reconnected when a Mexican investigative journalist reopens their wound in an unlikely way. When the priest and the journalist are subsequently abducted at the direction of a prominent Mexican politician seeking the journalist's damaging exposé on his opponent, the priest's two friends, long estranged by their remorse and own tangled history, reunite in an attempt to rescue him. What follows is a suspenseful thriller, but also a story about the evolution of love and friendship and the cost of one's past. With settings as varied as a small farm in Mexico, to present day Austin, a Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish border, a bar in Oaxaca, and finally to an isolated ranch in northern New Mexico. THE ANGEL'S CHAIR is at its heart a story of how a single act can color one's life, and the price one is willing to pay for redemption.

In the early 1970's, three friends, two men and a woman, become involved in smuggling marijuana from rural Mexico into Texas. They befriend the family of a farmer, and one of the men, Blackie, becomes romantically involved with the farmer's daughter. Their venture turns deadly when a local cartel attempts to take over their enterprise. The three friends have no choice but to flee Mexico and never look back, burying their secret. Blackie and his friend Rose struggle with their wound and eventually marry in the hope a new life will erase the memory of the tragedy of Mexico. Their attempt at happiness is cut short by another tragedy that only deepens their schism. Blackie eventually finds a semblance of peace as an Episcopal priest, while Rose becomes a nurse but never quite fully achieves a balance in her life. Their friend Mateo for a time continues his career as a smuggler but later finds his way and becomes a respectable businessman in Oaxaca. Over time, the three of them become estranged until one day a Mexican woman, an investigative journalist fleeing from a corrupt Mexican Presidential candidate, reopens their wound in an unlikely way. Blackie, who is serving out his final days as a priest in Austin, is approached by the journalist, Vianey Chavarria, who in desperation enlists his help in evading her pursuer, a corrupt Mexican policeman turned hit man who has been tasked with recovering the damaging information she holds and eliminating her. Her only leverage with Blackie is her revelation that she is the daughter of the young Mexican woman Blackie deserted forty-five years ago. Blackie and Vianey are subsequently abducted by the minions of a competing Mexican politician seeking Vianey's expose on his opponent. They are taken and held captive on a remote ranch in New Mexico. Meanwhile, Mateo and Rose are notified of Blackie's disappearance and both return to Texas, he from Oaxaca, she from an assignment in a refugee camp in Turkey. As they attempt to locate Blackie and secure his release, they deal with the memories of not only the tragedy that befell them in Mexico, but their estrangement and tangled history. As they bargain with Blackie and Vianey's abductor for their release, they find themselves in a race against time to close the deal before the Mexican hit man is also able to locate Vianey. The climax takes place on the ranch in New Mexico as all the characters engage in a deadly set piece. At its heart, this is a story of the evolution of love and friendship in the face of remorse and redemption. The three main characters find themselves facing the winter of their lives, a time when one is forced to weigh one's past and how it has affected one's path. This story should have immense appeal to the "baby boomer" generation as they deal with this same prospect. This is a book for readers that enjoy an original story line and complicated characters.

As a child, Dennis Jung's imagination outgrew his small town roots in the German speaking part of the Texas Hill Country thanks in part to a bibliophile mother and what his mother recognized as Unruhe, the German word for restlessness. An undergraduate degree in anthropology and a stint as a military police officer in Germany only deepened his love of travel and a desire for a life outside of the norm. A subsequent career as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner allowed him the flexibility to travel to many parts of the world. After a volunteer assignment in the Marshall Islands and a long road trip in Asia and the Pacific, he and his wife eventually settled in Hawaii, a place he still regards as his spiritual home. It was there he began writing in earnest, an endeavor that allowed him to live vicariously and feed a desire to embellish. His stories' use of visual imagery and his strong sense of place transport the reader to not only a geographical location but the mental landscape of his characters as well. Tapping into his interest and background in anthropology, he weaves into his stories a sense both of the mystical and the universal human experience - the drama and conflicts that consume us all, regardless of cultural identity. His locales encompass Balinese rice paddies to the refugee camps of the Sudan, the Guatemalan highlands to a decrepit hotel in the Congo, the Green Zone of Baghdad to the streets of Oaxaca during Day of the Dead, the war torn frontier between Syria and Lebanon, and a night ride in an ambulance in Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone to the alleyways of Honolulu's Chinatown. He recently retired from a long career in pediatrics, a profession that exposed him to the rich complexity of the human experience and the sense of compassion required to write characters that are both real and wonderfully flawed. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife.