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Blurb
Wylie Cypher, suffering from a mid-life crisis, decides to
challenge fading youth by taking a trekking vacation across the Cordillera
Blanca (White Mountains) of the High Andes in Peru with his daughter, Mercy,
just graduated from college. It is 1981.
While working with legal clients in Lima, he inadvertently
acquires documents that contain explosive and damning evidence about the
Peruvian government’s extreme interrogation techniques. He learns that something
is amiss when police detain and torture him. He loses his little toe. A series
of misunderstandings precipitate a heart-pounding chase across the high
mountains as two sets of villains - government thugs and members of the
communist guerrilla Sendero Luminoso – seek out the Cypher group with murderous
intent. Combat in the thin air of the mountains, deceptions of numerous sorts,
hairbreadth escapes, torture, action in underground caves populated with
mummies, and unexpected plot twists fill the pages of this book.
It is in the United States’ national interest to observe the
growing communist threat in its hemisphere, so C.I.A. agents are involved.
While Wylie and his cohorts are running for their lives, the author also
reports on international smuggling of historical artifacts, the fate of a
600-year-old child mummy, and the ancient spirit of the mountains, Pachamama.
Excerpt
The special child seemed almost
weightless in his arms as he approached the niche in the rocks where he
intended to place her. Ayar continued to gauge his ascent carefully, constantly
scanning the path below and the horizon. Special concern was necessary, as the
Chimu had not yet settled the war between their nations. They still sent out
raiding parties even as far south as Huaraz.
The body of the four-year-old girl
he carried was the daughter of Cuca, wife of Maita Capac. Cuca herself was now
sick with the plague that lay like a dark hand on the people of the White
Mountains. That disease had quickly taken the life of her firstborn, the lively
and adored Cocohuay, named for the turtledoves kept in a dovecote outside her
window.
The sickness spread almost faster
than the noble runners could report. There was news about strange white people
at Tumbes in the north. They wore silver jackets and sat on four-legged beasts
three times the size of the largest llama. They had huge wooden houses that
went on the sea, and sticks that carried thunder.
The plague began at Tumbes, and the
wooden houses left two of the strange men there and sailed away. Huayna Capac
sent to have them brought to him, but they were lost along the way. Now the
ruler’s people in Chavín de Huántar were dying. The embalmer’s services were in
high demand.
Cuca called Ayar when her little
daughter died. As wife of the regional administrator, Cuca was highly placed
and her demands took priority. Not that the embalmer would have denied her.
Once he saw the frail little child carefully arranged on the low table among
sweet-smelling grasses and flowers, and noted the florid flush of her face and
body, his heart went out to the grieving mother. He would do all he could to
prepare the little girl.
Author bio and links
The
author of Public Information has had
a varied career. He has been a scrub
nurse in an operating room, a professional photographer, a soldier during the
Korean War, a correspondent for the Pacific Stars and Stripes, an attorney
specializing in international corporate law, a volunteer executive running a
not-for-profit dedicated to housing the homeless, a manager of large and small
businesses and, lately, an author and Master Gardener.
He
first published short stories as an English Major from Yale. Finding the double-digit pay for that work
insufficient to support a wife and one and a half children, he went to law
school in hopes of finding better paying work. Fortunately, that proved to be
the case.
When
the author discovered that his wife kept all the 300 plus letters he wrote her
from Korea, he decided to use that material as the basis for a novel about the
Korean War. It was a story he had wanted to tell for many years.
Public
Information is based on his experiences as NCO in charge of a
combat Infantry Division Public Information (hence the title) Office in
Korea. It tells the story of Wylie
Cypher, a hapless young soldier who arrives in Korea in the midst of bloody
combat. Wylie manages to survive his
sixteen-month tour of duty as Margenau recounts in gory, ribald, poignant and
accurate detail. His adventures are
recounted in military jargon and his sometimes abrasive involvement with the
“Army way” describes the good, bad and incredible of life in the military.
Along the way, Wylie manages to find and lose love.
Other
veterans have found the story authentic and highly illustrative of the
background and details of the Korean War.
Publisher’s Weekly commented on the author’s ability to create a sense
of time and place. During the summer of
2012, Public Information became an Amazon.com Kindle best seller.
Pistils and
Poetry
is the author’s second book. It is a
compilation of Margenau’s favorite Elizabethan poems (Shakespeare, Marlowe,
Donne, and numerous others) juxtaposed with the author’s photographs of
flowers. It is a rich and engaging
poetry book, enhanced and complimented by luscious photos of flowers. The book is considered as an elegant way to
tease reluctant poetry readers into an appreciation of the beautiful sentiments
and language of long ago masters of the English language.
Encouraged
by the reception for his first novel, Margenau published Master Gardener, his second novel, in March 2013. It is a story
that explores conflicts between the benefits of engineered crops and their
potential for ecological disaster. Wylie
Cypher, the hero of Public Information, is now seventy-five years old. He uses his life and legal experience to
defend one of the women in his life, Anne Proctor, against the machinations of
malevolent BIG AG. Senior citizens band
together as eco-terrorists to save the monarch butterfly, and Dick Geier, the
ruthless and profane CEO of BIG AG, engages in corporate shenanigans that
reflect current headlines. The story is
set in Middletown, New Anglia, not too far from Philadelphia, and episodes
along the Amazon River in Peru bracketed by episodes along the Amazon River in Peru..
His
third novel, published in August 2014, is High
Andes. The central narrative follows Wylie Cypher, in his mid-forties and
suffering from a serious mid-life crisis, and his daughter, Mercy, as they try
to elude various villains chasing them across the White Mountains of Peru. The
story deals with armed insurrection by Maoist guerillas, smuggling ancient
artifacts, “disappearances” of troublemakers, a five hundred year old child
mummy, and the CIA.
Rolf
Margenau lives in rural New Jersey with his wife, three dogs, a 1932 Chrysler
convertible, and a flower garden favored by monarch butterflies. He is now
working on his fourth novel. Tentatively titled National Parks, the story
recounts what happens, in the near future, when Congress decides to nationalize
America’s National Parks.
An interesting blurb.
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting High Andes. Wylie is looking forward to comments.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure to have you here, Wylie.
DeleteI'm so glad your wife kept all those letters. There's a war correspondent I followed and she stopped for family and said she was going to turn all her articles into a book. I hope to see that soon.
ReplyDelete