Prelude to a Mushroom Cloud

Lee Herald

9/7/2003

Review by Molly

Burt Stephens awakens on a stormy December night in Chicago with a feeling of unrest. His baby sitter hastens to reassure the worried little boy. It is 1965, just before Christmas and Stephens’ parents have just been killed. From that point the orphaned youngster is raised by his grandfather. He does not understand the psychic encounters he begins to experience.

By 1990 a grown up Burt begins recording his varied and various psychic experiences. About the same time a pedophile strikes and strikes again until finally he kills a little 8 year old girl and leaves her mangled body and that of the family pup where her father will find her. Burt’s psychic urges continue to increase, in 1995 we find he is a well known, admired, journalist working for The Phoenix Times. When Burt receives a most peculiar card from The Judge, the angel of death he doesn’t know quite what to make of it. The pedophile Darwin is undergoing his own disconcerting thoughts, decides he should leave Arizona, hitchhikes to New Mexico, and is found decapitated with a card from The Judge, the angel of death, taped to his body.

All media suddenly tunes to channel 10 and nothing can be done to change the radio or TV views. The time has come to choose a world leader. Burt is caught up right in the middle of all of the diverse investigations, side stories and mystery.

Writer Herald has produced a chilling thriller in Prelude to a Mushroom Cloud that seizes the reader by the throat from the opening lines and holds interest fast through a roller coaster of misadventures, agitation, extraordinary situations and worrisome mishaps. The interwoven account of Darwin produces a antithesis to the ongoing narrative surrounding Burt Stephens and his assorted and numerous peculiar psychic experiences.

Prelude to a Mushroom Cloud is a manifold tale filled with ingeniously interwoven suspense filled story line, potent motivations and paradoxical contention set against a backdrop of well developed settings that leaves the reader gasping, troubled and perhaps even terrified to sleep in the dark for a while. Hair raising action, pleasantly puzzling incertitude, excellently wrought, well fleshed characters abound. Dialogue is energetic, hard hitting and at times filled with poignancy.

This fast paced, action packed work is an excellent choice for a quiet afternoon, don’t read Prelude to a Mushroom Cloud on a dark and stormy night! And keep the lights turned on just in case. Good exciting read, happy to recommend.

This book is available through the publisher, London Circle Publishing.