Detective Rein Connery Series

Blair Vaughn is a homeless dentist who witnesses the murder of a friend, Dr. Cynthia Maxwell, during an alcoholic blackout. The details of that night are sketchy for him, and he can only remember the events which had transpired in random bits. It seems that everywhere he goes, the body count rises, so it becomes imperative that he piece together the facts quickly before he ends up dead, too. Eventually Blair recognizes the man who killed Cynthia. His name is Quentin Latrice, a gem cutter, who not only has a passion for derby hats, but also for priceless gems and bloodshed. What terrifies Blair even more than remembering what Latrice had done, is discovering that this lapidary is a good friend of Detective Mikel Smith, the man in charge of Cynthia’s murder investigation. Through a series of flashbacks, Blair taxes his brain to remember vital details about Cynthia’s murder. Blair’s only hope of staying alive is to recall everything and then try and figure out who is behind it all. A vital clue is a note that he stumbles on which reads, “Lab Case #21: Pigeon Blood.” Lab cases are how dental offices label the bins of patients who require laboratory work to complete their treatments. So there must be something in bin number twenty-one at the dental office where Cynthia had been working. And being a rock and mineral enthusiast, Blair knows that the term ‘pigeon blood’ describes the color of the most valuable rubies in the world. Join Blair as he dodges killers, thugs, and police officers through the rough and unforgiving streets of Detroit, all while toting millions of dollars worth of gemstones in his frayed and fuzz-lined pockets. God and Detective Rein Connery, the one police officer in the city who can be trusted, are the only individuals who can help him now.

Carlyle Kastenmeier is a successful businessman who routinely amuses himself by controlling the lives of his wife, his son, his brother, his mistress, and his many employees. He also has a nasty habit of belittling others, delighting in making them feel incompetent and insignificant. And he emphasizes this point by tying a piece of red thread around their fingers to humiliate them, and only he is allowed to take it off. Lois, Carl’s wife, stays with him because he gives her everything she wants except his love. Carl’s employees stay with him because he pays them three times what their services are worth. Everyone justifies tolerating his abuse by telling themselves that the pay is good. Witness the story’s events through the eyes of Elaine Kostas, a maid recently hired by the Kastenmeiers. She observes as Detective Rein Connery tries to figure out who beat Carl with his own walking stick, cut him with a straight razor, and then left him to bleed out on the bathroom floor. It seems as if everyone is a suspect. Tasia McAvoy, Carl’s mistress, tried to leave him just months before his murder, but he forced her to come back. Carl’s bitter wife had to sign a prenuptial agreement relinquishing any right to his estate before he would marry her. Silas, their son, is a seven-year-old genius who certainly has the wherewithal, the intelligence, and the motives to kill his father. Vic Kastenmeier, Carl’s brilliant, alcoholic brother, had discovered a formula for an ideal oil paint varnish twenty years ago, but Carl took it away from him and built his fortune on the varnish’s manufacture and sale. Meanwhile, Vic is a pauper who depends on his brother’s assistance to live. Nicolette Howard oversees the sale and distribution of Carl Kastenmeier’s varnish and related products. Of late, Carl has been threatening to take away many of her duties and give them to one of her colleagues, Marlon McGhee. Marlon is in no way as talented or as bright as Nicolette, but Carl loves to tease her by suggesting that Marlon could easily take her place. Marlon, on the other hand, believes that he is being promoted when really it’s just another one of Carl’s practical jokes. Cameron Dmytryk, Carl’s chauffeur, hates his boss for many reasons, but most especially because of his condescending attitude. Zachary Cutteridge is the Kastenmeier’s painter and landscaper who is fired after Carl discovers that Zach is having an affair with Tasia. So, who killed Carlyle Kastenmeier? Read on as Detective Rein Connery sorts through the anger and animosity to get at the truth.

A botanist is murdered just as he is about to reveal an important discovery, leading Rein Connery on a chase through university hallways and Michigan’s northern wilderness to bring the professor’s killers to justice. The slain botanist is Curtis Jameson, and his newfound discovery is a species rose with blue-petaled potential, one he calls Cerulean Skies. Curt’s old high school friends are Rein Connery—now a Detroit homicide detective—and Paula Wrenfrew, a fellow botany professor. The university is the fictitious Michigan University in Lansing, and the northern wilderness is the very real Sylvania near Watersmeet. A short synopsis for Cerulean Skies: For the past decade, Dr. Curtis Jameson’s colleagues at Michigan University have been trying to develop a blue rose through genetic manipulation. Dr. Mary Lorrie has been heading the project, and she continues to do so until Curt stumbles onto something that could make all of the work she has done thus far irrelevant. What he has found is a new species rose which is believed to have blue-making genes in its ovaries. Dr. Paula Keao Wrenfrew, a Hawaiian-American botany professor, is Curt’s best friend. Rein Connery, also a friend of Curt’s, is a Detroit homicide detective who’s been in love with Paula since high school. Even though Paula elected to marry Al Wrenfrew seven years ago, Al’s infidelity and compulsive gambling have encouraged her to rethink the relationship she once had with Rein. Curtis decides to take Rein and Paula to Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula to find more of the roses. On the way, three men murder him and eventually steal his plant samples, notes, and the satellite navigator marking the area where the wild roses are known to be thriving. Rein kills one of the men but the other two, later identified as Corey D’Angelo and Vladimir Haas, get away. Daniel Burrins, the C. E. O. of Kertex Pharmaceuticals, has been funding Curtis’s trips as an ethnobotanist. Curt’s job for the company has been to find new plants to be analyzed for medicinal purposes. After Curt misled Kertex into believing that the rose plant he’d found was useless, they relented and sold him the rights to it. Needless to say, many powerful people at the company now regret that decision. Detective Rein Connery and Paula (who is an expert on North American vegetation and wildlife as well as a proficient navigator) decide to finish the journey that Curt had started by going on a backpack excursion through the Sylvania Wilderness to find the wild rose on their own. Rose plants recovered from Curt’s mother’s house make the trip less of a priority, but Paula insists on going. The trip had been Curt’s last wish. While alone in the wilderness, it’s hard for Rein not to be attracted to Paula after all these years. Finding a certain peace while cohabiting with nature, Rein and Paula become as enamored by the wildlife they encounter as they are with one another. Soon Paula realizes that she must choose between Rein and her husband Al.

A resistant bacterial strain is plaguing the city of Detroit and its suburbs, and is quickly spreading to other parts of the country. Dr. Eunice Sabara, a renowned infectious disease specialist, is working around the clock to find a cure, and she’s really close to one when she’s found brutally murdered in her home office. Before leaving Dr. Sabara’s house, her assailants can’t resist putting a bullet into the hard drive of the computer that contains the bulk of her research, no doubt to emphasize how little they regarded the work she’s been doing. The horrible truth is, however, that the cure for the resistant bacterial strain had been on that hard drive, and was subsequently lost when it was destroyed. And destroyed right along with it is the hope of thousands of people who have already contracted and are currently suffering from the disease. It’s also unsettling to note that the neighborhood Dr. Sabara had lived in is filled with swastika-wearing, golf-club wielding, gay- and lesbian-bashing thugs who seem to hate just for the fun of it. And there are even a few upstanding citizens in Galena, men and women many consider the pillars of the community, who found Dr. Sabara’s lesbian lifestyle just as distasteful as the neighborhood toughs did. The once quiet, conservative community of Galena has never been so glaringly spotlighted before, and its residents don’t like the attention at all. In walks Rein Connery, the police detective who’s been assigned to track down Dr. Sabara’s killers and bring them to justice. While getting the job done, Rein befriends a battle weary, yet far from defeated, Joby Rowe and a whole host of her allies, a group of self-described “transgender warriors” (a term coined by Leslie Feinberg’s book of the same name) who aren’t afraid to live their lives as they see fit. Among them is Mattie Duncan, a woman whose gender-identity doesn’t quite match her sex; Raymond Lazaro Ferra, a cross-dressing, heterosexual male; Candy Brown, the former man who’s undergone sexual reassignment and now couldn’t be happier as a woman; and teenager Yvonne Rasmussen, a heterosexual female who believes that people should be allowed the freedom to dress, act, and express themselves in ways that make them happy in this colorful, if not grimly realistic, slice of Americana. Joby Rowe explains that the word G-A-Y is an acronym for the phrase “Good As You”. Rein Connery is also schooled in the urgency and need to accept people as they are. And once Rein gets to know these warriors, he finds out that they are decent, hard-working people who are struggling to be free and happy just like everyone else. The theme of the story is summarized by Yvonne when she tells Detective Connery, “[I’m not homosexual,] but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in their right to exist. Do you have to be homeless to have empathy for someone who doesn’t have a home? Do you have to be black to abhor segregation? Do you have to be dying of a disease to want to see a cure for it?” Let’s all pray that the answer to each of the questions Yvonne poses above is a resounding and unequivocal, NO.

When Philip Whitefeather was twelve years old, he went on a vision quest and dreamed that he would die before his twenty-first birthday. Before his death, however, it was foretold that Philip would be the driving force behind the reawakening of the spirit of the Anishinabeg people. Now a nineteen-year-old student of psychology at the University of Detroit, with a curriculum heavily emphasizing mental disorders, Philip knows that his death is imminent. So he does what his vision had told him to do seven years ago: He dies in a sacred place so that the Anishinabeg might be inspired to embrace the ways of their ancestors once again. The place Philip chooses to leave this world and enter into the spiritual realm is the petroglyph site in Michigan’s Sanilac County near Greenleaf Township. When it’s discovered that Philip has been a victim of foul play, Detective Rein Connery is asked by an old friend and former flame to take the lead on the homicide investigation. Rein accepts, but initially finds facing Evelyn Dawn Standingcloud after all these years awkward and embarrassing, especially now that he’s a happily married man with a son and a second child on the way. Old feelings stir and even a surprise or two are in store for Rein as he and Evelyn try to figure out who killed Philip, how the killer managed to pull it off, and why. Twilight Is the Time the Dead Look Back is not just a mystery, it’s a realistic window into the lives and beliefs of those who are members of the great Ojibwe Nation. So get ready to adjust your mindset to follow a people who are not only resilient and strong, but also giving, forgiving, accepting of others, and content to respect and to thrive as one with nature. We could all take a lesson from these very wise and gifted people.