Starvation Mountain

Jim Schmidt, a high-powered computer whiz decides to take early retirement from the stress of the rat-race and build his dream house at an avocado ranch on Starvation Mountain, near San Diego. Never married, Jim is well off and content with his passion for owning and riding motorcycles. The mountains around Southern California provide wonderful trails for his riding. When Jim meets a younger, forty-something, Penny Lane, the connection is instant and enjoyable. But Penny is tied up with an old high school buddy who seems to be on the wrong side of the law. Unintentionally caught up in a vicious drug gang web, Jim and Penny find themselves on the bike ride of their lives, following the old Route 66 trails of their favourite movie, Easy Rider. Starvation Mountain is a thriller that combines 70's pop culture with a love of motorcycles, especially Harleys.

Starvation Mountain is a contemporary fiction thriller. Jim Schmidt had found his home, his place, on his acreage located on Starvation Mountain. He loved riding the mountains that ranged east of San Diego, and his avocado grove would soon be the site of his retirement home. He wished he had been able to convince Annie to move south when he left Boulder Creek where they had lived together. It was still painful to consider that she had finally agreed to come down for a week just before she died in an awful traffic accident. Now, some years after he had purchased his grove, he was finally getting the plans going for his home. He had been discussing them with his architect when he heard a woman's voice. She approached him from the small cabin adjoining his land. Her name was Penny Lane, itself a fitting icebreaker of a conversational topic. Like him, she loved to ride, and, like Jim, she actually preferred Jack Daniels to wine. Penny had an unknown problem, however; one that she didn't create, but would set the two new friends on a life and death ride across the country.

Robert Gilberg lives in San Diego, California with his wife of 50 years, Nikki, and their Fox Terrier, Sophie; a Shih-Poo named Obi (Wan Kanobe); African Grey parrot, Coco; Belgian Water Slogger canary, Punkin, and a huge assortment of wild birds and other wildlife. He is a graduate of Ohio State University with a BSEE in 1965, who retired after 35 years from his world of computers, communications, and microelectronics. He holds many patents in microelectronics design and was a member of a team receiving an Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Engineering. The last thirteen years of his career found him working in a San Diego company that pioneered digital television, hi-definition TV, and broadband communications to the home. He has published three books in the past two years: a memoir, The Last Road Rebel and Other Lost Stories, short stories of growing up and coming of age in the '50s and '60s in small town Ohio; his first novel, Alice Chang, a hi-tech thriller of electronics piracy, kidnapping, murder and romance in settings that roam the beautiful places of San Diego County but concludes with a confrontation with the criminals in Hong Kong. The third novel, Twists of Fate--A Folk Rock Odyssey, is a story of two people traveling on separate quests to California, accompanied by the music of the '60s and '70s, and the strange convergence of their quests. Publication: July, 18, 2017. Robert (Bob) is a music lover, book lover, car-guy, and, along with Nikki, experienced world traveler.