Biography
If not for my ten brothers and sisters, I might have been an only child. I grew up near Lake Superior in Michigan’s north. I joined the Navy during Vietnam, then attended Michigan State University with hopes of being a doctor. Instead, I became a carpenter. A decision that spared lives, I’ve been told. I did for many years work as a journalist, chasing hard news in a sleepy Connecticut town, and scratching out satirical columns designed to lighten the hearts of the local citizenry --- an enjoyable pursuit that won notice from The New England Press Association. And again, from The Hartford Courant for a lengthy fictional piece celebrating Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee. He was one, as you know, transplanted just like me, a century apart.
BLUE AVIARY
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 15, 2023
THE SEEDLING PAPERS
August 21, 2017
In 1941, Silas McCally, a Harvard-educated geneticist, uncovers the secrets to clone reproduction. He prepares for a conference in Stockholm, Sweden, titling his work, The Seedling Project. The Nazis, in their insatiable quest to enhance the Aryan Race, kidnap McCally, who spends years confined, refusing to relinquish his secrets. Lest upon discovery, causing embarrassment to the Reich, McCally is given an alias, Duncan Riley... and a new address, Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Kyleigh O’Brien gives birth to son Michael late in the summer of 1941. Years later, Michael shares a chance encounter with an old man on a train bound for South Boston. For an aging and often addled Duncan Riley, the encounter enlivens memories dredged from a past long buried. “Mustard Seed,” a shaken Duncan acknowledges the young man.
Thus begins this story of two men, one young and one old. It is a tale of murder and kidnap, and a race to awaken a tortured mind. An alliance is struck, to save one life and restore another.
