Hans Raufer, the novel's title character, has led a turbulent life! Our narrator, a Boston-based engineering specialist, is on a flight returning from a grueling field trip in the Canadian Arctic when his aircraft experiences an engine failure. The plane makes an emergency landing in Churchill Manitoba on Hudson Bay, the Polar Bear Capital of the World. Business associates arrange for our narrator to stay in Hans Raufer's spare bedroom for the several days it takes to repair the engine. In spite of worlds of differences, our narrator and Hans become friends. Gradually, Hans tells the tale of his tortuous past, revealing an unbelievable chain of conflicts, near misses, and catastrophes which range from a rough adolescence in the Hitler youth, the invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USSR, a stint with Erwin Rommel and the Afrikakorps, the theft of a submarine, Dien Bien Phu, and a hitch as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo. In the end, Hans Raufer, the Brawler, turns out to be something other than one would have suspected. Our narrator returns to his placid life in Boston chastened and uplifted both by what he has learned...and in possession of an unexpected gift.
About the Author: Lewis MacLeod is the pen-name of DBNickerson and does honor to his Scots ancestry. Born in 1947, MacLeod has been a resident of the western states all his life. From his beginnings in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, he relocated to Oregon on completing college. He now resides in Salem, Oregon's capital city. He has enjoyed a varied working career, having in his time worked as biologist with the US Forest Service, military intelligence analyst serving in Vietnam, mechanical engineer for heavy-lift logging systems, software development specialist operating his own consulting firm, and teacher of mathematics, chemistry and computer sciences. His writing efforts span more than forty years. MacLeod is retired from teaching now, and devotes much of his energy to his writing endeavors. He saves time for his grandchildren and for his passionate devotion to Celtic tunes -- look him up, bring your fiddle or flute, and he will happily uncase his concertina or pennywhistle and set you up with a Guinness while together you pour out the jigs, reels and hornpipes. MacLeod's first foray into e-publishing -- "Miss Mai" -- is mostly a personal memoir, but with touches of fictionalization to protect the privacy of the characters involved. MacLeod's "Solae" series, a chronological sequence of four novels, is a whole lot more fiction for the epic-adventure fan to chew on! Timespan of centuries, cast of thousands (well...dozens and dozens, anyway!), sweeping global stage, conflicting beliefs and cultures, love, passion, sensuality, hatred, treachery, devotion, conflict, redemption, interesting linguistic twists. In four volumes, the titles are "Twenty-One Forty-Seven", "The Solae", "Solae Inheritor", and "Solae Redeemer." Two other works round out MacLeod's offerings as of summer 2016. These are "Cúc," a short novelette of tragedy and unrelenting affection, and "The Brawler," a wild ride of adventure and danger. Work-in-progress: "Earth Crosser"...guaranteed to flabbergast and amuse! MacLeod has brought to bear his lifelong interest in languages in his writing. Native English-speaker with the slightest trace of Scots burr inherited from his father's lineage, he has a measure of fluency in nine other tongues, including Arabic, Irish Gaelic, Tagalog and Hawaiian. His writings stop short of overwhelming the reader with linguistics, but gently remind one of the magical diversity to be found in human cultures.