Villa Marckwald

Villa Marckwald PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1469744155
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
VILLA MARCKWALD is a love story set in the immediate aftermath of the unification of East and West Germany. Alice Marckwald and Adam Bell, both fifty-eight and born in Berlin, meet under adversarial conditions arising from counter restitution claims for the return of an architecturally significant urban mansion in the heart of Berlin. Alice, a widow with two grown daughters, was born in the mansion but remembers it only as a child. The Nazis had forced her Jewish family to sell the residence in the 1930's. Adam, whose "Aryan" family purchased the mansion, grew up there and was in his early twenties at the time the building was seized by the communist regime in the 1950's. Both found their way to America. Alice works as a mathematician in Santa Monica, California, and Adam is a professor of archaeology at a small college in central Pennsylvania. Both, for their own reasons, greet news of the possibility of recovering the mansion as a welcome development in their respective lives and file the necessary papers seeking its return. The shock to each after being informed the other has filed a competing claim strengthens their resolve. Eventually, they meet face to face where their initial animosity is slowly worn away as they come to know one another. A week-long sojourn on the island of Sardinia brings their relationship to a new level and poses a dilemma that each must resolve if a satisfactory outcome is to be achieved.

Villa Marckwald

Villa Marckwald PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1469744155
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
VILLA MARCKWALD is a love story set in the immediate aftermath of the unification of East and West Germany. Alice Marckwald and Adam Bell, both fifty-eight and born in Berlin, meet under adversarial conditions arising from counter restitution claims for the return of an architecturally significant urban mansion in the heart of Berlin. Alice, a widow with two grown daughters, was born in the mansion but remembers it only as a child. The Nazis had forced her Jewish family to sell the residence in the 1930's. Adam, whose "Aryan" family purchased the mansion, grew up there and was in his early twenties at the time the building was seized by the communist regime in the 1950's. Both found their way to America. Alice works as a mathematician in Santa Monica, California, and Adam is a professor of archaeology at a small college in central Pennsylvania. Both, for their own reasons, greet news of the possibility of recovering the mansion as a welcome development in their respective lives and file the necessary papers seeking its return. The shock to each after being informed the other has filed a competing claim strengthens their resolve. Eventually, they meet face to face where their initial animosity is slowly worn away as they come to know one another. A week-long sojourn on the island of Sardinia brings their relationship to a new level and poses a dilemma that each must resolve if a satisfactory outcome is to be achieved.

Poststrasse 16

Poststrasse 16 PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 147598247X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
POSTSTRASSE 16 tells the story of a young college graduate anxious to succeed in the fast-pace world of internet entrepreneurship who commits to a business relationship not knowing the dangers it poses. Claire Berman is a twenty-seven year old Harvard educated woman who possesses special skills in the hot new field of crowd-sourcing analysis. Working out of a dot-com incubator in Alexandria, Virginia, she’s approached by Lawrence Appleton, who identifies himself as a representative of the Clearfield Institute of New York City. The Institute’s mission, he explains, is to promote world peace through assisting governments in Eastern Europe in their fight against smuggling. Stopping off in Berlin, Germany, after a brief business trip to Belgrade on behalf of the Institute, Claire visits her grandmother, Alice Marckwald, who lives there after gaining possession of an urban mansion in a restitution claim shortly after the unification of East and West Germany. The visit becomes open-ended as she doggedly pursues the objectives of the Institute using her crowd-sourcing expertise. Gradually, she discovers the true identity of her employer and the full extent of the danger she’s been exposed to. The action is fast-paced, with Claire finding herself buffeted by criminal threats as she pursues her work through the capitals of Eastern Europe.

Last Stand at Gowler Canyon

Last Stand at Gowler Canyon PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663203350
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The year is 1988. Dave Nash, a 45-year old Viet Nam vet, has just retired after 25 years working as a telephone linesman in rural Iowa. He discovers he’s been left a desert ranch in Southern California by his late aunt. Dave never met the woman—the sister of his mother—and has no idea how he came to be the beneficiary. But having no strong ties to the greater Des Moines area where he grew up, he decides to pack all his worldly goods in the back of his brand new pickup and drive out to California to see if he can make a new life for himself on a defunct 120 acre ranch miles from any paved road. Upon arriving at the ranch, Dave meets up with a vivacious, Scottish-born heiress named Liz Simmons who owns a ranch not far from his. A woman of considerable accomplishment, Dave feels inadequate in her company, but she’ll have nothing of it, and aims to insinuate herself into his life. His few other neighbors are equally unstinting in their welcome: the proprietor of a bar/restaurant about a mile away named Carl Hurbinger, and a free-lance writer named James Hausman who resides in a small house at the place where the uneven dirt tract that leads to his ranch links up with the closest paved road. Soon, Dave finds himself becoming involved in the lives of his neighbors. It all comes to a head when he’s forced to deal with a crackpot scheme proposed by Seymour Berenger, a friend of one of his neighbors.

Assyrian Gold

Assyrian Gold PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1491797088
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
ASSYRIAN GOLD is the fourth action-thriller novel to feature WILLIAM CHURCH, the freelance recovery specialist previously based in San Francisco. At the urging of his principal client, a New York insurance company, he takes up temporary residence in London. There, he is contacted by a representative of an undisclosed Middle Eastern country anxious to have Church recover a horde of six hundred pieces of priceless ancient Neo-Assyrian gold jewelry looted by militants from an important archaeological site located in a region of the country outside effective government control. Church is offered a two million dollar fee for the successful recovery of the jewelry before it can be melted down into gold bullion or before it disappears into the shadowy antiquities market of Europe. Capitalizing on leads developed through a clever use of the internets deep web, Church sets out to intercept the militants before they can dispose of the collection. Aided by a small team of Ex-Israeli military intelligence operatives, Church engages in a race against time that takes him from the Middle East to Cyprus and finally to eastern Europe, with deadly exchanges of gunfire all along the way.

A Bookstore in Berlin

A Bookstore in Berlin PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532078420
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Lt. Col. Elliott Stone of the U.S. Army, long associated with the Defense Intelligence Agency, observes what he believes to be a suspicious handover of a document while browsing in a bookstore located in an old section of Berlin. Curious, he lingers in the vicinity long enough to observe a second person perform the same indirect handover, where a document is slipped under the inside flap of a book jacket and the book returned to the shelves. Now, thoroughly suspicious, he snatches the document from its hiding place, leaves the bookstore, then finds himself suddenly and violently attacked on the street as he heads for home. After reading the document he alerts Colonel Appleton, Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin and Director of a secret NATO Planning Center located nearby, to the likelihood an attempt is being made to obtain highly secret intel from the Center by an unknown espionage organization.Elliott Stone is charged with assembling a small team of Delta Force operatives to assist in uncovering the elaborate espionage operation, dismantling it, then pursuing leads that will hopefully result in discovering who was behind it. The fast moving plot takes place primarily in Berlin, but towards the end the action shifts to Warsaw, Poland, then to a breakaway enclave of Moldova in eastern Europe where Elliott Stone’s mission reaches a dramatic climax.

Kagnew Station: Dateline 1956

Kagnew Station: Dateline 1956 PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663241619
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Kagnew Station, a U.S. military base set in the Horn of Africa, was tasked with handling critical radio communication between far-flung Army, Navy and Consular entities. In addition, it served as a super secret listening post staffed by personnel from the Army Security Agency, the National Security Agency, and the CIA. By the Fall of 1956, there were two thousand Americans at the base—military, civilian, and dependents—with more on the way. As a result, a major expansion of the base, and a thorough upgrade of its radio transmitting, receiving, and surveillance technology was well underway. A little over a month earlier, on July 26, 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, upsetting well-established security interests throughout the Middle East. Nasser turned to the Soviet Union for help, giving it leverage in its attempt to secure a new strategic military presence in the area, including in the Red Sea. Worried about the vulnerability of Kagnew Station to newly emboldened Soviet intrigue, the CIA instructs Alan Harper, a young covert CIA officer, to go to Asmara, Eritrea, and assess the base’s security risk—not only from Soviet-inspired political action, but also from Soviet-engineered sabotage. Using his cover as a freelance journalist, Harper arrives ostensibly to do a newspaper article on the relocation and expansion of Kagnew Station, giving him entrée to senior military, diplomatic, and civic leaders, as well as with Eritrean students and local businessmen. The situation becomes dangerous, both to himself and to the base, once Harper learns of the presence of a four-man Soviet cell and puts it under surveillance.

Calcutta: Dateline 1955

Calcutta: Dateline 1955 PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663215227
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
The year is 1955. Alan Harper, a 25-year old freelance journalist, recruited by the CIA fresh out of college, is serving as a covert agent based in Cairo after finishing a two-year training period at Camp Peary, the CIA “Farm”. In October of that year, after only nine months in the field, he’s suddenly reassigned to Calcutta, India, and tasked with uncovering the clandestine network used by foreign powers to support local leftist political parties attempting to prevail in Calcutta’s municipal elections. When power brokers in Calcutta learn an American investigative reporter is heading their way panic ensues. They worry an exposé article in a major U.S. newspaper or magazine can affect the political landscape of the city in ways they wish to avoid. Persons benefitting financially under the current city administration wish to stop the reporter; persons involved in running the clandestine network he’s tasked to uncover also wish to prevent him from doing his job. Harper finds himself the target of desperate efforts at preventing him from reaching Calcutta—efforts that morph into attempts on his life once he arrives. Nevertheless, Harper sticks to his “cover”, using reportorial stratagems to get the story, thwarting one attempt on his life after another as he proceeds. It is a time of Cold War intrigue, of non-alignment, of Hindu Bengali refugees flooding into Calcutta from East Pakistan, of street demonstrations, of political party competition—with all actors intently focused on the next election.

Went Missing

Went Missing PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532061617
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Baroness Emily Wood, a distinguished archaeologist, is reported missing during a brief visit to an ancient Greek site on the island of Crete. Discreet inquiries undertaken by the institute that employs her are unsuccessful in determining Dr. Wood’s whereabouts. Fearing she may have been abducted, the institute’s director approaches William Church for assistance. William Church, a freelance recovery specialist based in San Francisco and London, is commissioned by the institute’s director to travel to Crete in the hopes of locating her. Owing to the fact that Baroness Wood is also a member of the House of Lords, there is concern her mysterious disappearance could cause the British government unwelcome embarrassment. Accordingly, Church is instructed to secure her release by whatever means necessary in the event she has fallen into the hands of criminals. With the aid of his associate, Ariella Brandt, a former member of an elite Israeli military unit, and that of Aaron, a shadowy Israeli operative, Church traces the path of the missing woman, even as it leads to the politically unstable eastern region of Libya. Despite being confronted by local militias and violent jihadis, Church and his team discover where the baroness is being held, then forcibly rescue her. Racing for the Libyan coast and to the motor yacht waiting to pick them up, Church and his party run a gauntlet of angry armed men intent on stopping them.

Aksum

Aksum PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532022123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
This work is an abridged version of the book CHANGING SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE AKSUM-YEHA REGION OF ETHIOPIA: 700 BCAD 850 written by the author and published in 2005 in the Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology Series by British Archaeological Reports (BAR) of Oxford, United Kingdom. Most of the books methodological and technical sections have been removed in order for the reader to more easily focus on the main theme of the work, namely how the study of the settlement history of a single region can reveal the ways in which a society adapts to changing conditions over the course of a thousand years. From a scatter of simple hamlets and villages, Ancient Aksum evolved into a formidable mercantile state that, for a time, controlled much of the trade at the southern end of the Red Sea. Then, as circumstances changed, Aksum went into decline, its urban center contracting then disappearing. The historical trajectory of Aksum as discussed in this work offers a textbook example of political change: from egalitarian hamlets, the Aksumites organized themselves into an increasingly prominent local chiefdom, then into a kingdom, and eventually into a state.

Istanbul: Dateline 1956

Istanbul: Dateline 1956 PDF Author: Joseph W. Michels
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663234671
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Istanbul in 1956 was a city very much affected by the Cold War. It served as a destination for Eastern Europeans being smuggled through the Iron Curtain and was a transfer point for smuggling from the Middle East to Europe. Most importantly, the 1950’s was a time of growing American military and economic aid to Turkey. Soviet and nationalist communist entities viewed the generous American support as a national security threat, leading to a heightened interest on their part in learning what steps the Americans were planning to take or the status of initiatives already underway. In this novel’s fictional scenario the close knit American expat community of Istanbul, composed of U.S. Consulate personnel, undercover operatives of other U.S. agencies, retirees, businessmen, students and others, is rumored to have a spy in their midst. After a CIA agent is murdered while investigating the rumor, Alan Harper, a young CIA operative fresh from an assignment in North Africa, is tasked with finding out who ordered the killing while also being asked to take up where the dead agent left off. The young Alan Harper, only a few years out of journalism school and the completion of his CIA training, undertakes his third major assignment; his first being his undercover work in Calcutta in 1955 in connection with the city’s forthcoming municipal elections; his second being an assessment of the geopolitical status of the province of Cyrenaica, Libya, after Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956. Teaming up with Harper during this new and dangerous assignment is Anne Small, a CIA agent based in Beirut who ostensibly works for UNESCO. She poses as Harper’s girlfriend while Harper is purportedly in Istanbul to write a feature article on the growing popularity of Istanbul as an American tourist destination.