The Killing of Strangers by Jerry Holt
"With the opening line ... you're in for a great read...a wonderful story, a real page turner." Jeff Bruce, Dayton Daily News
"...a story of intrigue and suspense. ...a real page-turner." Ohioana Quarterly, Fall 2006
"...very vivid...conveyed a powerful emotional punch. [and] lingered in my mind for a long time after reading it." Margaret Lucke, author of "A Relative Stranger" and "Writing Mysteries."
"I was leading [a] mystery writing class in which Jerry participated...I still remember the opening scene and great dialogue." Sharon Short, Stain-Busting Mystery Series (Antioch Writers Workshop instructor)
"I enjoyed the book immensely, and it kept me absorbed from beginning to end....a splendid piece of work..." Gilbert Geis, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Irvine; former Pres. American Society of Criminology., Author of 26 books including Fury with Legs
"You can't put this book down. ...a page turner." Scott Allan Wright, Yellow Springs (OH) News
"The novel’s second act...[beginning] with a car chase... is tightly plotted and highly readable." Charlie Toft: The Other Paper, July 2006, Columbus (OH)
"I read it in one day...The last novel...I could say the same about was Ann Patchett's Bel Canto." Virgil Hervey, Co-director Antioch (OH) Writers' Workshop
"...a sharp mix of factual events, crisp writing and grizzled characters. The pacing's great; the dialogue is swift...a definite pick." Hadji Williams, Author of Knock the Hustle: How to Save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America
"An interesting and well-written suspense!" USABookNews.com
"The past few years have been spent with my head in screenplays. This book removed me from that and gave me a love for the novel again. The characters are deep and colorful, and the story is one you will not be able to put down easily. It has excitement, romance, m...ystery...well, it has it all! This book is very well written and captivating! I could see the movie playing out in my mind as I read eagerly from page to page. I hope Jerry Holt keeps us intrigued for many years to come. Another please!" J. McCaughtry, Oklahoma City
The events which took place on a northern Ohio university campus on May 4, 1970, have haunted a generation. On that day the National Guard fired into a group of college students who were protesting the invasion of Cambodia by the United States. Four students were killed and nine wounded. But a psychological wound was sustained by this country on that day as well — and its pain lingers today.
The Killing of Strangers, a novel set in 1995, involves the continuing mystery of that day and those events. Sam Haggard has every reason to believe that his life has run out in the southern Ohio rust belt city he calls home. Fired from his job as a security cop and dumped by his wife, he's just about as down as out can get. Then he is offered the dubious assignment of guarding Crystal Jones, a woman who was at Kent State on that day — a then-radical whose activist husband, the chillingly nicknamed Lucifer, disappeared on May 4, never to be seen again. Until now, or so Crystal claims. Through her current fog of pills and alcohol, Crystal swears that Lucifer is alive, and trying to contact her.
As Sam is drawn into her story, he finds himself reliving his own past — and also becoming more and more involved with Crystal's daughter, Corrie, a tough yet strangely tender representative of a very different generation. When Crystal is killed on Sam's watch, he and Corrie find that they, too, are in danger: there is someone out there — someone who holds answers to the long-buried secrets of Kent State. These are the kinds of secrets that have cost people their lives — and which now, twenty-five years later, are just as deadly as they ever were.
Paperback: 256 pages ISBN-10: 0977630048 ISBN-13: 978-0977630042 $14.95
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About the Author:Jerry Holt is the author of "Rickey," a play based on the life of baseball guru Branch Rickey, the man who changed civil rights history when he brought Jackie Robinson into the Major Leagues in 1947. "Rickey" has been performed across the US, most memorably in Brooklyn at LIU and in Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jerry Holt is Chair of English and Modern Languages at Purdue, the North Central Campus.
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