The Czech Republic has struggled to throw off its cloak of communism and perform in the capitalist West. Since the early 1990s it has struggled to figure out where to go next. The author lived there during a crucial period of time, 1996-1997. He travelled everywhere through the Republic, lived with a Czech family in their high rise panelak apartment and tried to teach journalism at Masaryk University in Brno. He also talked to many of the main actors in this Czech drama, the playwrights, newspaper editors, communist party leaders, average citizens. Their outlooks of the future were filtered...
The Czech Republic has struggled to throw off its cloak of communism and perform in the capitalist West. Since the early 1990s it has struggled to fig...
Sometimes, a historical event is so riddled with false assumptions, so replete with bad decisions, so preposterous that the only way to deal with it is metaphorically. Nowadays, that would have to include the two-term Bush years. The Boathouse is a fable in the spirit of Orwell's "Animal Farm," which, of course, took on communism. The main characters here are not Iraqis, but besieged swallows under attack and then imprisoned by the new owner of their boathouse. He is a bumbling commander-in-chief, just like you-know-who. Captain Don comes to the bird's rescue and the plot takes wings from...
Sometimes, a historical event is so riddled with false assumptions, so replete with bad decisions, so preposterous that the only way to deal with it i...
A cruise, with a contingent of murder mystery game players on board, sets off from Fort Lauderdale for Rio de Janeiro and its world-famous Carnaval. Little do they know, their pastime will be supplemented by some very real homicides. Cruise Director Jonathan scarcely controls his own destiny on the SS Santa Maria. Bureaucrats in the Miami corporate offices, especially his boss, Sidney Streiter, strive to administer all on-board activities. Try as hard as they might, they can't figure out who is doing the killing. It's not all doom and gloom on board. This novel is also a travel guide to the...
A cruise, with a contingent of murder mystery game players on board, sets off from Fort Lauderdale for Rio de Janeiro and its world-famous Carnaval. L...
"The Golden Rule: Sex, Drugs and Stalking Moles in Czechoslovakia" begins as a Cold War spy novel before the fall of communism in 1989. It ends five years later as our heroes try to stem the rising tide of Western culture flooding the Czech Republic. Carl Hoffman and Milan are an unlikely pair: one is an American scientist, the other a Czech hockey player. Two beautiful women attract their interest. Vera is a travel guide, Carl's lover and Milan's sister. Nora is Milan's "Adamite" girl friend who lives her life like Eve in the Good Book. Arrayed against them are the infamous StB Czech Secret...
"The Golden Rule: Sex, Drugs and Stalking Moles in Czechoslovakia" begins as a Cold War spy novel before the fall of communism in 1989. It ends five y...