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Burnt District, The  
| April 10, 1845: A monstrous fire rips through the city of Pittsburgh, destroying one-third of the city and leaving four thousand people homeless. Amazingly, the disaster claims only three lives. Or does it? City Constable John Parker and a group of night watchmen discover the body of a young girl among the rubble of a destroyed building. Others assume that the girl died as a result of the fire, but Parker’s mind is flooded by memories of a similar discovery from his boyhood, and he discards the idea that the girl’s death was an accident. Compelled by his haunting memories, Parker embarks on his own investigation and discovers that this is the latest in a series of murders reaching back seventeen years. His search for the killer takes him throughout the young city of Pittsburgh and into the hinterland of Western Pennsylvania, but all answers lead him back to The Burnt District. |
The Spectrum, A Novel
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The long-awaited sequel to The Burnt District!
In December of 1846 the United States is at war. Parading soldiers and military bands fill Pittsburgh’s streets with martial airs. But the dead bodies turning up in the city’s back alleys have nothing to do with battle. The victims are the poorest of the poor, the flotsam and jetsam from the shores of Europe. City Constable John Parker is again at odds with his boss, High Constable Abraham Butler, about who is doing the killing and why. Butler believes the murders to be directly related to the warriors from the East who fill his city. Parker suspects the answer may lie in a different battle, a dark struggle within America itself, the outcome of which will determine the identity of a nation. But if Parker is to find the killer and prevent more deaths, he must first take seriously warnings that he, now, has become the target.
Signed copies can be purchased by emailing the author at theburntdistrict@hotmail.com. | |
