Martin Herman – författare

It is 1806; a powerful and criminal secret society has almost complete control over many of the elected officials, international finance, and commerce in the young nation. Its leaders arrange for a dissident to be brutally murdered and left floating in the Potomac River so that the body surfaces within clear site of Thomas Jefferson's White House. This criminal act is intended to send a message to the President and all those around him: 'the society's power should know no limit – elected officials – including the president – must acknowledge and support us, allow us to do whatever we want, when and wherever we choose, or suffer the consequences'. Almost two hundred years later, after discovering a hidden diary written by someone who lived in the White House during that time, a small group of college students and a world class computer hacker learn all there is to know about this particular crime... the identity of the victim and what, if anything, Jefferson did about it? They also learn all about the secret society. By digging into this two hundred year old crime the students attract the attention of the modern day version of the secret society. The current leader threatens the student's very existence - but rather than retreat, the students decide to fight back.

This is the second in the current series of Will James mystery novels, this time, the anti- establishment private investigator and his crew are asked to help unravel a mystery that begins in a Brooklyn antique store and ends in the most unlikely of locations. Every Sunday morning, precisely at 10:30 sharp, there is an auction held in a sparsely furnished back room of Better Times Remembered, a small neighborhood antique store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Albert Froog, the owner of the store and self declared auctioneer, personally chooses the items for each week's auction. Generally these items are fairly ordinary but become more interesting because of the back story he is able to weave around them. At times there is even a speck of truth in the story he tells. At this particular Sunday morning auction, one of the items he offers up is a prohibition era permit in a battered old wooden frame authorizing the manufacture of alcohol. It was one of many items he acquired in an estate purchase. On his inventory sheet he has assigned a value of 50 cents to one dollar for this item because so many similar permits were issued during prohibition and the frame is of little or no value. Hoping he will wind up with something between 50 cents and a dollar he starts the bidding at $2.00. To his surprise and amazement two separate people quickly bid the price up to $100,000. "Who would pay $100,000 for this piece of junk?" Froog asks himself. "What do they know that I don't?" When the head of the New York Mafia family also shows interest in the item Froog becomes doubly convinced that he really has a hidden treasure on his hands. If you think you know how this will all end you are so very, very wrong. As with all Will James Mysteries, the numerous twists and turns will keep you reading and guessing until the very last page.