Hugh Holiday, the stutterer with the suave British accent, has to be one of the most inadvertent, intriguing, delightful and entertaining figures in the pantheon of fictional crime solvers.
Hugh Holiday is stuck on a Penrose Stairs, every step cut from Hell. He forges ahead on his impossible staircase; he gets nowhere. His stuttering is severe, his only friend’s a dog, he barely makes ends meet, and his dream of medical school has morphed into an air castle. And now he is wanted for the murder of a medical school professor. And hunted by a hit man. Not bad for a twenty-three-year-old.
For a brief moment—before the police interrogations, the mob encounters—Hugh was certain his life had turned around. The breakthrough had come in the form of a British accent acquired during an extended trip: it offered a workaround for his speech disfluencies, opened a new world. Now, not using it is the only thing keeping him free: the sole witness is adamant the intruder had a smooth British accent.
An involuntary outsider, no one has helped Hugh Holiday before and no one is going to help him now. Stuck between the crosshairs of a police lieutenant and those tying up this loose end, affecting a British accent to investigate the crime, a stuttering persona publicly, Hugh Holiday is looking for a way off his Penrose Stairs.
Published by Hudson MacArthur Publishers, Inc.
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The novel is set in Pittsburgh and captures well not just the physical environs and history of the locale
but also the spirit of the city and its denizens. The characters introduced—the bulldog of a police lieutenant; the mob boss whose legitimate businesses and philanthropic activities have earned him respect; the tech savvy, philosopher hit man hired to take out Holiday; the ruthless capo with the beautiful wife; the med school surgeon who is somehow tied up in everything—are intriguing.
With its progressively building suspense and its captivating main character, the eponymous stutterer with the smooth British accent, Hugh Holiday is quality storytelling and introduces one of the more fascinating figures in contemporary writing.
The Pantanal of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay
is widely considered the most comprehensive, English-language book on the world’s largest wetland system. Edited by Frederick A. Swarts, Ph.D., this collection of papers and presentations on the Pantanal represents some of the best academic material on this immense and biologically rich system. Many of the world’s foremost authorities–from Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and other nations, and from key international and intergovernmental organizations–share their knowledge of the Pantanal and their insights on the socioeconomic challenges confronting this unique treasure. This version is the conference edition. The fully edited, second version, titled The Pantanal: Understanding and Preserving the World’s Largest Wetland, was subsequently reprinted by, and is available from, Paragon House Publishers. See table of contents. and a review in Wetlands: Journal of the Society of Wetland Scientists.
Codified and summarized within The Spiritual Code are twelve fundamental spiritual laws which are inseparably linked with happiness and success. These twelve “time-tested” principles are drawn from the sacred texts and teachings of the world’s great religions and philosophies, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Shinto. Supporting text is likewise culled from smaller traditional and tribal religions and various newer religions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to emphasize the universality of these cardinal principles. See here for more details on this remarkable book that presents these established principles, widely-held among the diverse religious traditions, presented in an organized and easy to understand manner.