In the inner-city ghettos of Jamaica, a woman is pummeled within inches of her life as the neighbors raid her shanty home looking for something even they cannot bring themselves to believe. An angelic eight month old baby is found, within minutes of her death, under the concrete stairwell in a shopping mall in a frigid Canadian winter day. There is no note on the baby and the police have no clues to go by. Public pressure rises. People demand the capture of the person responsible for such a heinous act. Citizens clamor for answers from the police but the detectives are looking for a needle in a haystack. Two young children are taken into protective services when a SWAT team raids a subversive Black Panthers meeting and finds the kids in a room full of smoke and plans of sabotage. These hellish acts haunt Arberto and Melanie Warden. Devoted to their faith and family, they believe in a simple life and strive to live as Jesus did. Although from different backgrounds, their fervent determination to live by the Scriptures unites them. Together, they fight the evil around them. Active in their church and Toronto community, the Wardens spend their time counseling children-at-risk, pregnant teenage mothers and others who have lost their way while the couple grows their own devoted family. Their meticulous clean appearance together with their charismatic feisty personality, wins them the hearts of those they hope to save. However, their model-citizen status begins to crumble when Arberto's radical interpretation of the Scriptures is questioned. As Arberto's influence soars in the church, a small but vociferous group secretly attempts to undermine him. They think Arberto is full of holes and they are on a witch hunt to close them. Their distrust grows when they discover Alberto's church contacts reach all the way to the Middle East. Melanie's strong personality betrays her weak will. She is like a lone frayed thread; never holding on to its roots and too quick to leap. Arberto introduces her to a world where her devotion finds order.As his status rises in the community so do his demands on his family. Arberto becomes fanatical about cleanliness and expects Melanie and his young children to scrub Satan from their lives. He nearly starves his family in the belief that one must feed the soul before the body. Believing that science is contrary to religion, Arberto does not allow his family to consult a doctor or his wife to have a baby in the hospital. All his children are born at home. Soon, his extremism captures the attention of the police and the Warden's children are taken into the custody of Children's Services. Melanie does not understand the world in which she lives. All Alberto and she are trying to do is to make the world a better place, or are they? The Story of Two Old Suitcases delves deep into a world where paranoia, psychosis and religious faith happily co-mingle. With each turn, obstacles mount and with each decision the protagonist take complications compile to finally create a despicable tragedy. Based on true events, this fictional story presents two separate court cases where justice is not served yet, who is to say?
About the Author: World travel has informed Phyllis Koppel's sensibility from the very beginning. Born to American parents in Mexico City, she spent her formative years in Latin America and moved to California to complete her high school education. Ms. Koppel took a five year sabbatical in the Middle East, eventually returning to San Diego to study visual arts with an emphasis on photography and journalism at the University of California, San Diego where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Photography took her to New York City where she documented and published causes of poverty and social injustice in small press pamphets. That same need to speak and represent the less fortunate led her to join the U.S. Peace Corps in 1992 where her tour of duty took her to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. As a volunteer, she taught visual arts to high school students, organized island-wide student exhibitions and served as vice-president of the newly created St. Kitts Art Teachers' Association. Having finished her tour, the government of St. Kitts asked her to stay and granted her permanent residency. Ms. Koppel remained in St. Kitts for a total of fourteen years. It was during these years she transitioned from photography to writing and painting always trying to find the simple things that unite us as cultures. Phyllis Koppel came to Canada to pursue writing full time. Her work has concentrated on the themes of culture and immigration. She is the author of three novels and many short stories.