The American Revolution did not just happen. It was the culmination of two centuries of Enlightenment ideas that entered men's minds and were refined and honed until they expressed themselves in an unprecedented rejection of tyranny in the name of individual rights and political freedom from the whims of arrogant monarchs and conniving, power-lusting politicians. Sparrowhawk: Book One, Jack Frake encapsulates that process in the story of a Cornwall peasant boy who rejects the tyranny of the British Crown and joins a unique smuggling gang whose members are also in revolt against the arbitrary...

In The Black Stone, the sixth adventure of Cyrus Skeen, private detective and socialite in San Francisco, it is February 1930, marking the end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the Depression and the "Red Decade," when Soviet spies and Communist fellow travelers have begun to infiltrate the government and the culture. In The Chameleon and A Crimson Overture, Skeen tangled with Nazi plotters and Communist spies. In this new case, he confronts a new kind of nemesis that has been gestating in the Middle East for centuries and is now being enabled by oil companies and careless foreign...

After having some breathing room from his last case, which brought him up against Islamic operatives in San Francisco in The Black Stone, Cyrus Skeen and his wife take a short vacation on a luxury bus, the Pickwick Stage. But the bus is held up by gangsters. Skeen goes into action and foils the hijacking. But his heroism engenders even more problems and perils. Set in San Francisco in March 1930, Skeen moves around in a familiar milieu dampened by the Depression and the growth of Hooverville shanty towns of foreclosed and impoverished men in the shadow of the city's wealthier neighborhoods....

Rational Scrutiny: Paradoxes and Contradictions in Detective Fiction, discusses why Chess Hanrahan and Cyrus Skeen, the author's premier heroes and the chief subjects of this volume, are not only extraordinary men of action, but "intellectuals" of the first rank, as well. As Cline writes in the Preface, detective fiction, as a rule, employs both "intellectuals" and "doers." Detectives solve problems; detectives usually do something about them. Problems cannot be solved until they are grasped, understood, and counter actions are identified. In the mystery and detective fiction genres,...

Islam's Reign of Terror chronicles the war waged against the U.S. and the West, resulting in over 24,000 acts of terror and tens of thousands of deaths in a campaign to force the world to submit unconditionally to Islam and Sharia Law. It also discusses the West's anemic, evasive response to the war declared against it, and how that insipid response only encourages terrorists and states that sponsor terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Islam-dominated nations to continue to attack the West. From the numerous executions and murders of individual Westerners to the cowardly Western...

It is April, 1930. The Roaring Twenties have ended. The nation is absorbing the shock of the stock market crash of the previous October. However, in the wake of the economic catastrophe, Cyrus Skeen, private detective, scion of East Coast wealth, and a figure in San Francisco Society, is secure. He never bought on margin. In this eighth adventure of Skeen's, Hollywood reaches out to him, literally. A Hollywood producer visits his office and promises him the moon if he would agree to allow his persona and cases be used for some new movies, possibly starring William Powell or Ronald Colman....

The time of The Circles of Odin is early September, 1929, after Skeen's case of the Daedalus Society in July and before he discovers in November a Nazi Bund in Palo Alto, south of San Francisco, Skeen's main venue of his adventures. This ninth title in the Skeen detective series pits the formidable sleuth against a group of Nazi-affiliated cultists who wish to bring about the resurrection of an ancient, storied culture for which there is little archeological evidence, but on which is based the material for scholarly volumes of legend and mythology. His chief nemesis is an organization called...

It is October 1929. The Roaring Twenties will end near the end of the month with the stock market crash heard round the world. . The nation will absorb the consequences of the crash with great difficulty over the next decade, exacerbated by government fiscal policies. However, in the wake of the coming economic catastrophe, Cyrus Skeen, private detective, scion of East Coast wealth, and a figure in San Francisco Society, is secure. He never bought on margin. Skeen has a reputation - some would say a notoriety - for justice and meting out rough desserts to crooks, criminals, and other...

A Handbook on Islam is intended to be a supplementary guide to Islam's Reign of Terror, which was published by the Voltaire Press in 2013. The latter title offers a chronicle of terrorist acts committed since 9/11, which, as of the date of this writing, have neared 26,000 separate and deadly attacks of varying magnitudes. These attacks are now commonplace and are occurring daily, chiefly in the Mideast and in Africa, committed by ISIS (or 'ISIL," or the "Islamic State"), which has established beachheads in Libya and in Nigeria and in other unstable countries in that region. "Outbreaks" of...