The day he lost his job, Rex Barney receives in a disbursement of a will, one skeleton key. Big deal. He'd rather have money. But the key is his entrance to the exclusive Spyglass House, a private club built on the fault line of time and space, each side-door opening onto another world. So it is when Rex stumbles out into a 19th century Indjia, a land of snake charmers and elephants, steam engines and sailing ships, he falls in with two shady ladies who promise him sweetmeats and card tricks on a train to Norpur if he will help them appropriate a stash of jewels worth enough to live large in Londoon or Pariie. It sounds like great fun until he is shanghaied aboard a tall ship, runs into pirates seeking to separate head from body, treks through mangrove swamps infested with snakes and mosquitoes, faces jungle people who are out looking for stew meat, and eats stirred-fried beetles which taste a little like chicken, but a whole lot like puke. And all this before he gets caught in the crossfire over who should be the Maharaja of Donjobi. Great fun if he can ever get back to the safety of Spyglass House.
About the Author: Peter Abresch is the author of ten previous, fast paced novels: Recycling Jesus; Me and Snack McGhee; Capitol Coven; The Faltese Malcom; If They Ask for a Hand, Only Give Them a Finger; and five Jim Dandy ELDERHOSTEL Mysteries. He is also the author of a non-fiction book on writing, Easy Reading Writing, easy reading about writing easy reading, published in August, 2001. The challenge here, pick up the book and start reading anywhere and if it is hard to read, he doesn't know what he is talking about. He has used that knowledge to output BookMarc, a free on-line newsletter on the adventures of fiction writing. He also outputs a free spiritual poem each Monday called Burnt Offerings, free for the asking. He has also written writing columns for Futures Magazine and articles on e-publishing for Sister-In-Crime, taught fiction writing at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington Independent Writers, and Maryland Writers Association, memoir writing at the College of Southern Maryland, plus various seminars in the Washington/Baltimore area. Finally, he has written a one act play, Headquarters, which was produced at the Vianney Theater in 2005 and has been selected to be produced in the Maryland One Act Festival in January 2012 and also be performed at the East Coast Play Festival in spring of 2012 . Peter Abresch was born in the USA, a long, looong time ago, was a professional dancer in the far past, a Geodesist which took him all over the world, and a computer systems programmer before retiring from the National Weather Service. He has built three sailboats and, with his wife and five sons, hammered and nailed together a thirty-four hundred square foot house. His email address is Peter@Sidewalkbooks.com