Outskirts Press has had the good fortune to work with many talented authors over the years. We feel it’s important every now and then to give a nod to the authors who’ve made us so proud. For that reason, we enjoy featuring an author in our regular Self Publishing Author Spotlight.
This week we’re proud to feature author David C. Edney, author of a number of action-adventure fiction novels through Outskirts Press. Edney divides his time between New York’s Finger Lakes region and the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, and is the author of Renegade and the Sam McGowan adventure series.
Renegade
Jesse Redfeather’s day is about to get even worse. His bipolar girlfriend has gone off the deep end, grabbed her .357, jumped into her truck and headed for the Gila Wilderness, leaving her ten year old son behind. Knowing Angie and her demons, this is never a good thing. Coming to work at 6am, Jesse hopes to relax by planting flowers and grooming greens at Albuquerque Country Club. Instead, he encounters an oblivious twit yakking on his cell phone while his three large dogs relieve themselves prodigiously on the fairways. Nearby is a freshly cut hole in the chainlink, and a pearlescent SUV, license plate GENIUS, parked on the bike trail outside. Unable to contain himself, and a bit jangled by events at home, Jesse snaps, violating his self-imposed rule of never confronting rich white idiots, and never dreaming of the shit-storm he’s about to unleash. GENIUS, it happens, is Dr. Richard I. Davis, Professor of Physics at UNM, and perhaps the world’s most inept scientist. Sometimes, Jesse thinks, upon learning this, the spirits have got to be messing with me! Meanwhile, across town, someone at Sandia National Labs has a big problem, and she senses, a great opportunity. Almost immediately, a pork-peddling US Senator, three honchos from DOE and the Jicarilla Nation, sensing a potential windfall, become involved. Crooked police, casino gambling, strip joints, narcotics, nuclear waste and a process that seems too good to be true: how is a lowly groundskeeper to keep it all straight? And what is his involvement in it to begin with?
The Dragon and the Dove
Nearly two years after the holocaust at Black Point, archaeologist Sam McGowan awakens in an underground shelter near Bear Mountain, NY. The world is in even worse shape than he remembered, and now, with food running out and the climate ruined, everyone on Earth is blaming him. Devastated by what he saw that day in Rhode Island, McGowan, filled with hate and lust for revenge, is eager to finish the fight. With pesky Deborah Jeanne out of the way, McGowan is now free to fight his way. Lin Song, wife of his arch enemy, has returned to China, retrieved that old book, In Quest of Phi, and assembled a massive army with which she intends to duplicate the victories of the Mongol Khans. World domination is her goal: Western thought will be wiped out, and Phi will be rammed down the throats of the survivors. Friendless and alone this time, McGowan must raise a war chest and recruit an army of his own. With Lin already on the march and time running out, McGowan gets help from an unlikely source: a twelve year old boy. With Eric-the-Unruly, who needs an army? And with the words of In Quest of Phi: The Search for Creative Meaning still ringing in his ears, exactly what is Truth?
An ill-timed trip to France in the wake of Nine-Eleven puts young archaeologist Sam McGowan on collision course with a government bent on introducing us to a New American Century. Illegal war? Sanctioned torture? Concentration camps on American soil? Massive wealth transfer? That’s only the beginning. McGowan goes in search of a paper trail which will blow the cover off the greatest American scandal since slavery, and expose the Ultra-Conservative philosophy behind it.
Amelia Earhart is lost but apparently alive somewhere in the Pacific, and Elinor Jones, the friend who promised to ‘protect’ her on her round-the-world flight, is wandering a mangrove swamp in India. At home, the company Miss Jones recently inherited has already fallen into the wrong hands, and J. Edgar Hoover wants to arrest her for treason. Meanwhile, that old book, In Quest of Phi, her whole reason for being, is somewhere in North Africa: on the wrong side of a big war. Her best friend, airplane mechanic Ernie Tisor, is just a phone call away. If only she could find a phone. So, Miss Jones, how will you squirm out of this one?
Just months before the 1929 Women’s Air Derby, misnamed the ‘Powder Puff Derby’ by Will Rogers, 17 year old Elinor Jones, who some are calling ‘The World’s Greatest Female Aviator,’ is without a ride. This is a disadvantage, since Miss Jones would like to win the cross-country air race to prove that her title is deserved. Besides, she has a greater objective: to keep alive a more famous, but far less skillful aviatrix whose promoter-husband wants her to win at all costs. The husband, publisher George Palmer Putnam, has furthermore promised to ruin Miss Jones, and anyone else who gets in the way of Amelia Earhart. Just when all seems lost, a mysterious Texan named David R. Smith appears and offers Miss Jones a cup of coffee, a sympathetic ear, and an idea. The Golden Age of Air Racing, and Ellie Jones’ love life are off to a rip-roaring start. The Messenger is based, in part, on a true story.
A crusty old manuscript in a leather valise appears amid the cargo on a frontier packet boat in the 1840’s. The behavior of the book’s owners, an impecunious professor and his wife, arouse the interest of the packet’s larcenous, illiterate, but very ambitious First Mate, 16 year old Liam O’Sullivan. Enlisting the aid of a couple of young friends in a drought-stricken community along the way, O’Sullivan endeavors to find out what’s in the old book. Perhaps there’s a buck to be made. The outcome embroils the village in angry confrontation. The Town Constable, a Calvinist preacher, a frontier banker and a hoard of angry canallers are swept up in it. Soon, all is not well in the Village of New Hartford. Then it begins to rain.
Suppose someone was to find or create a book which not only conclusively debunked almost every existing human belief, but went on to explain in comprehensive detail how things actually work? Everything, that is, from day to day behavior to quantum physics. How would such a book, and its discoverer, be received? What would be their fate? Is there room inside the human mind for Truth and Belief to coexist? Can we tell them apart? Archaeologist Sam McGowan unearthed a man who was fated to explore such questions: a 14th Century Italian lawyer named Antonio DiMarco. Dr. McGowan also unearthed DiMarco’s book: In Quest of Phi: the Search for Creative Meaning. Here, McGowan allows DiMarco to relive his tale along with the remarkable characters who lived it with him.
McGowan’s Gift
Professor Sam McGowan’s archaeological career is headed for the rocks. Following an auspicious beginning, boredom, dalliances, and an absolute knack for political incorrectness have Dr. McGowan’s uncanny talent for unearthing relics and correcting history in serious trouble. Dr. Carlo Bruni, Sam’s boss and mentor, has decided that, for the good of all, McGowan’s upcoming, highly sensitive dig near China’s Three Gorges Project requires a chaperone. Deborah Jeanne Lott, a young lady with a few talents of her own, has had her eye on Dr. McGowan. Unfortunately, their previous encounters have proven disastrous, and there is little to suggest that things will be different this time. Three thousand miles away in Washington, D.C., Senator Matthew Mallory has grown frustrated with China’s pervasive influence on American affairs in the wake of economic collapse. He has resolved to create a permanent solution to the problem. His actions place him on a collision course with Miss Lott and Dr. McGowan with far more at stake than a handful of dusty relics.
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