The Joshua Effect

The rooftop reception on the skyscraper in lower Manhattan is an elegant and festive affair right up until the moment the murders occur. With the lives of sixty-three of his friends and business associates snuffed out in one horrifying blink of an eye, the wealthy and enigmatic Jonathan Strickland boards a dangerous roller coaster ride of a lifetime in this clever, nail biting who-done-it. From a clandestine meeting in the foreboding Syrian desert, to a brazen gun battle among the rich and famous in the exotic streets of glamorous Miami Beach, and then onto the discovery of the secretive Catskills hideaway of a reclusive scientist in upstate New York, the thrilling ride never lets up. Strickland races against time to find the invisible killers who have even more horrific carnage in mind; they call their sinister plan the Joshua Effect.

The rooftop reception on the skyscraper in lower Manhattan is an elegant and festive affair right up until the moment the murders occur. With the lives of sixty-three of his friends and business associates snuffed out in one horrifying blink of an eye, the wealthy and enigmatic Jonathan Strickland boards a dangerous roller coaster ride of a lifetime in this clever, nail biting who-done-it. Following the nebulous clues left behind at the scene of the terrible crime, Strickland finds himself kidnapped and taken to a clandestine meeting in the middle of the foreboding Syrian desert beneath the ancient ruins of one of the oldest civilizations known to man. The lines between good and evil blur as the suspect list narrows. Strickland races against time to find the invisible killers who have even more horrific carnage in mind; they call their sinister plan the Joshua Effect. Strickland also struggles with the essence of a life thrown into question by the gnawing epiphany that he is losing the one thing which actually gives his existence meaning. All of his fantastic achievements pale when compared with the desire to possess the love of the one woman who can understand him - but who can never be with the man he is. As the clock ticks relentlessly forward to a catastrophe of truly Biblical proportions, the hunt for those responsible nears its climax. From a brazen gun battle among the rich and famous in the exotic streets of glamorous Miami Beach to the discovery of the secretive Catskills hideaway of a reclusive scientist in upstate New York, the thrilling ride never lets up. All the while the personal war inside Strickland rages on. Who is he? More importantly, who will he end up becoming? For a man who thought he had everything, why does he suddenly find his life so empty? For Jonathan the revelation that a life with nothing in it worth dying for isn't much worth living shakes the very core of his being. Then why does it feel so right? The Joshua Effect is a taut, suspense filled page turner with a stunner around every corner.

In the old days life was definitely a whole lot simpler. For one thing, we all wore newer shoes and we didn’t have the foggiest notion about what was REALLY going on. I remember things from those early days. Things like my first beer. I was fifteen when I bought my first six-pack at the Curtis Gordon Hotel on Henderson Highway in Winnipeg. I think it was made by Molson Canadian. I looked older than my age. You had to be eighteen to buy booze in Manitoba and by then I looked nineteen. We took the beer across the street to Midnight Bowling at the Rossmere Lanes. I don’t think Kurt had one; he was always a teetotaler. Me and Johnny the Headman split it, caught a buzz, and had a little fun. Big D, a guy I’d known through Junior High and on into High School, was more interested in the bowling. Man, could he ever send that ten-pin ball flying down the alley. The damn thing must have been doing sixty-five miles an hour by the time it exploded the pins at the lane’s far end. Memories. Good ones. Firsts. Aren’t they something? Like the first kiss. That would be Lorraine. I remember she had a last name that could have been put on the side of a can of mosquito spray. She was something else, though. We had a ton of fun until I screwed things up royally by getting drunk and kissing someone else who happened to be a friend of a friend. You know how that one goes. What would we do without hormones? The first time I drove a car was amazing. For whatever reason my old man decided to buy sixty acres of a farm on the edge of the city and decided to drive his Olds Delta 88 with the rocket 455 engine through his wheat field. He let me get in behind the wheel. I guess he figured I couldn’t wreck anything out there in the middle of all that wheat. Freedom. That’s all I remember feeling. Fourteen years old and I could turn the wheel, punch the gas petal, and go anywhere. There was the first time I stepped into the ring as a heavyweight fighter, adrenaline running as high as the jet stream. I looked across at the guy in the other corner as we were getting ready for the bell to sound and I asked myself what the hell was I doing here? Because it was Jimmy Hoffa’s nephew standing across from me. I won that one by the way. Thanks, Ed. You were a great trainer. The first time I smoked pot I loved it. I’ve been smoking it ever since. It is sheer madness that the assholes we pay to look after things made it illegal – for the money. But that’s an entirely different story. And then there was the first time I took the escalators up to the fourth floor cafeteria at the University of Winnipeg. I was at one of the lowest points in my life. Lost in a sea of madness all around me, I finally asked myself if I could be completely selfish in my life and do anything – the one thing – that made sense to me, what would that be? I sat down at one of the tables and wrote the first three quarters of the first page of THE MONEY HOUSES. And that one single moment of utter clarity changed my life forever. I was very much in love and the timing couldn’t have been more wrong. I was still making a living doing stuff I couldn’t stand doing, and I could see the disaster coming down the road. If I said yes to her there would have been a whole lotta hurting going on later on. I loved all of us way too much to put anyone through that, so I said no. Man, that was so painful, you can’t even begin to imagine. We both moved on, she to a marriage I hoped would give her everything she needed, and I, well, I was going to be a writer. I want to thank these few rare people who had the temerity and courage to see things the way they could be, the way things ought to be, and not accept the circumstances of their lives as they were. Sometimes it requires a hell of a lot more umph deep down there where it counts the most to stay the course. I tip my hat to every one of you who would rather know, than blindly believe. God bless each and every one of you. I’ll see you all in my next novel.