Bøger af James Paulding

"The Kissing Law" is the epic struggle of Michael Sheppard as he fights to keep a young girl off the streets in Denver, Colorado. He was mowing his lawn when he first met her. She was tall, thin and had short-cropped, blonde hair. At first he thought she was a boy. "I'm Kim," she said walking toward him. She was wearing a Rockies baseball cap, sort of cockeyed, and had a small glove on her left hand. He stopped mowing and looked at her. "Where do you live, Kim?" "In the big house on the hill. I live mostly in the night," she explained. "...roaming the streets of Denver." He smiled. "Aren't you ever scared?" "Why? I'm the real killer on the scene. I carry a Luger. Bought it from an old drunk near the mall. He was okay. Actually nice. But right after he warned me about the dangers of the night, he collapsed next to a big, square garbage container. I think he croaked there." She glanced up at him. "Are we going to be friends?" He couldn't help laughing. "Maybe. We'll have to wait and see." He already knew she was in love with him. With the first snow came her 13th birthday. He had seen the postman coming down the hill and stepped outside and placed a couple envelopes in the tray for pickup. He had absently left his door open, planning to go right back in after grabbing his new mail. In the meantime, Kim walked into his house without knocking. "Today is my birthday," she announced. "I'm 13 years old." She wants a kiss, he thought absently. "You should come to my house this afternoon," she told him. "We're serving cake and ice cream. Also, Father wants to meet you. He's going to offer you a position teaching me English and History. $20 an hour." "What's the catch?" he asked skeptically. She grinned. "You have to promise you'll keep me off the streets." He met her eyes, considering. "So, it's your birthday," he said. She smiled back. He kissed her lightly on the mouth. The postman saw them through the picture window and called the police. The officer in charge was there in 10 minutes and gave the young people good advice. He told them to do their studying in the library, or in Kim's big house on the hill. Michael's small home was off limits. The Kissing Law deals with murder and other acts of violence. Young Kim finds Roberta Simms, Michael's older girlfriend, partially covered by snow in a nearby field. The police are unable to solve the case on their own. There is, however, a letter hidden under Kim's pillow waiting to be discovered. Inside the letter, which Kim never opened or read, is the name of the murderer. And soon he'll be coming after her.

A Denver Associate Professor is assigned a young female graduate student whom he has previously never met. She is brilliant, extremely wealthy, yet appears emotionally unstable. During the following weeks, the professor unravels a plot of intrigue, finding his student using her vast wealth for purposes of political revenge. Under commitment to his university, and pressured by the girl's own father, he agrees to act as guardian, and accompanies his student to Europe. Once there, however, both are placed at risk due to knowledge surfacing about a large manuscript, one with tentacles reaching back to the Second World War. Within four months Dr. Westbrook will witness large sums of money changing hands, imprisonment, right-wing terrorists with automatic weapons, and several people dying in a foreign land. Book Synopsis: The girl stares straight ahead into the eastern sky. They leave Germany, crossing into the Bohemian Forest, moving relentlessly toward the ancient, bloody city of Prague. She will enter the city like a thief in the night, leaving her professor friend alone with a target on his back. The professor is Dr. Robert Westbrook, who was driving a silver Mercedes. The girl is Everly Somerset who is carefully plotting revenge against the people who destroyed her family. Later in Prague, they will separate with scarcely a word of goodbye, right after he orders her to hide the manuscript. While at that moment Westbrook is aware of a large manuscript, soon he will remember very little about anything. Full of drugs, he is held prisoner in a large home of some kind by right-wing criminals, desperately attempting to locate the manuscript. They are convinced Westbrook has written the volume, a work they believe has dangerous implications for the modern Czech Republic. Being held captive in causes Westbrook to recall aspects of the 1930s and 40s. Although the Second World War was fought decades before he was born, he continues to wonder if there could possibly be some strange connection between where he is right now and that distant past. Five days pass. During this time, Westbrook has attempted to escape twice without success. His billfold and passport have been stolen, yet no one in this home has questioned him about anything. No one has mentioned his name. This changes on the morning of day six. He had been lying on his bed of his prison home, contemplating the seriousness of his situation, when his thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a stranger, standing silently in his doorway. The man is rather handsome, tall, athletic looking, perhaps 40 years old, with white hair and blue eyes. He comes directly to Westbrook's bed offers his hand, and introduces himself as Michael Novotny. Westbrook refuses to take his hand. Novotny shrugs and sits down on a chair nearby. He is holding a clipboard, and has placed a couple of books on a small table underneath a painted-over window. "It's impairative that we talk," Novotny says sternly. "It will have to be now. Are you planning some kind of action against my small country, Dr. Westbrook? By the way, we found you hotel room early this morning. We broke into you room safe. The manuscript was not there!" Novotny has become agitated. "Where is your manuscript Dr. Westbrook?" After a long interogation it becomes obvious that Novotny has two goals: locating the manuscript and probing Westbrook's knowledge of the Second World War. Still, the officer appears to be an honest individual who may eventually free him from this prison home. Still, Westbrook is not safe. During the next 24 hours, he is attacked, wounded, and hospialized. The Czech rightists were by then convinced the large manuscript is actually a historical account of thousands of atrocities committed by citizens of three cultures during the Second World War and its aftermath. They want the work destroyed! Historical figures included in the book include Benes, Heydrich, Hitler, Tilly, & Wallenstein.

Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, Paulding wrote a number of Christmas tales, the best of which are brought together in this collection and which predate Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Paulding presents his stories as they have been translated from the original Dutch by a fictitious author. In them Saint Nicholas - a sixteenth-century Dutch Protestant baker - miraculously befriends those who uphold Dutch traditions and sets straight those who are either mean or given to "newfangled notions".