Baden-Powell’s Beads
By Paul D. Parsons
Dr. Parsons takes a bit of history, a pinch of magic, a hint of mystery, a large dollop of suspense and throws them together in the mixing bowl of his imagination to create a page-turning novel that entertains the reader from the opening sentence to the final page.
His story opens with a Prologue describing the horrific scene of an 1888 battlefield in South Africa. Black flies swarm over the bodies of dead Zulus. The scene is an attention getter and introduces the mystical beads and how Baden-Powell obtains them. Chapter One opens in Langley, VA, in 2005 with two Homeland Security Agents assigned to investigate a cryptic message from an unknown source regarding a link between the beads and ritualistic killings.
The focus then shifts to Memphis, TN, where we are meet Dr. David Freeman, a young resident physician at the VA Hospital. While making his rounds he is summoned to the room of a dying patient where he is fated to possess one of the mystical beads. Possession of the bead not only puts Dr. Freeman in mortal danger but also that is his girl friend, Pam Blanchard.
Dr. Parsons creates several unique characters that readers will want to invest emotional interest, from sympathy, humor, anger and justice. The suspense rips through the streets of Memphis as the actors are kidnapped, escape, shot at, and kidnapped again, until the final satisfying climax when a new mystery begins.
