Böcker av William Neil Martin

A THIRST IN BABYLON is a fact-based novel relating the events leading up to the St. Francis Dam disaster in 1928, near Los Angeles. It follows the life of William Mulholland, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Water Company, who spent most of his fifty years with the company searching for new sources of water to accommodate the needs of a rapidly growing population in a city that he had grown to love. Several of those years were spent in the construction of an aqueduct that would traverse 240 miles of desert, and tunnel through a mountain range, to reach its final destination in Los Angeles. Historians would laud the construction of the aqueduct as the greatest achievement of its kind - second only to the building of the Panama Canal.The St. Francis was not the first dam Mulholland constructed in the development of reservoirs in the Los Angeles area, but it would be the last. The dam was constructed to contain water to be used in the event of a drought. There would be enough water to accommodate the needs of Los Angeles throughout the dry period.When full, the St. Francis Dam would hold back 12 billion gallons of water. Sadly, two years after the structure was completed, at a time of night when most of the unsuspecting community was sleeping, the dam collapsed, unleashing a gigantic flood of water, a hundred feet high, that would travel fifty miles, the Pacific Ocean. It is also the story of those who courageously responded to the disaster, taking part in the rescue and recovery of the flood victims. Many of their stories are related in this account of the disaster. The story describes the actions of the unsung heroes - those who tended to the bodies of those who did not survive the tragedy.The St. Francis Dam collapse has been recognized as the greatest man-made disaster in California history. At least four hundred known people were killed in the flood, though many victims are still missing.

Sgt.Garland Flowers, a homicide detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff´s Department, has a dilemma. He loves his wife and he loves his job, but his two loves are not compatible. This conflict is causing the breakup of his marriage and any hopes for a normal home life. The long hours, constant demands of the job, and Garland´s preoccupation with his cases have caused the couple to separate. The turmoil in his personal life, though, does not compare with what is in store for him in his latest case. Garland and his partner, Archie Penner, are called to investigate a murder in a ghetto community adjacent to the city of Los Angeles. The scene they encounter resembles a disaster area. "The place looks like a cyclone went through it" is how the deputy at the scene describes it. A triple murder, including a pre-adolescent girl, has been perpetrated. The apartment has been left in shambles, with furniture thrown about as if by a raging storm. Two of the victims, a man and a woman, are in the master bedroom. The man´s neck is broken and the woman has been strangled. Both appear to have been dispatched by an incredibly powerful assailant. In the other bedroom is their child, the product of a racially mixed marriage. The body of the child is neatly laid out in repose. She has been smothered. No items in the room have been displaced ... quite a contrast from the other rooms. Further assessment of the crime scene rules out robbery as a motive. Could this crime have been racially motivated? The crime has all the earmarks of an act of personal rage. With little to go on, no fingerprints, no witnesses or other clues as to the perpetrator´s identity or motive, the detectives have no place to turn. That is, until another multiple homicide two weeks later gives Flowers his first break. A thumbprint has been lifted from the second crime scene. The fingerprint identifies the suspect as a man by the name of B.C. Jones, a recent parolee from Soledad Prison. Jones is six feet six inches in height and weighs 280 pounds, and none of it is fat. His chest and arms are massive. For six years he has been lifting weights in prison, where he was sent for killing his father. He committed the crime with his bare hands. Jones is a mulatto, the product of a black father and a white mother. He is also simple-minded, having endured a childhood of constant physical abuse. He is a social outcast, and is extremely bitter about his racially mixed blood. In his mind, his lack of racial identity is the root of all of his problems, and he feels compelled to do something about it. During the course of the investigation Sgt. Flowers pieces together the psychological puzzle that motivates Jones to commit these murders. Meanwhile, Jones discovers that he has been named as the suspect in these crimes and flees to the home of his only known relative, an aunt who lives in Gulfport, Mississippi. While staying with her he is arrested for a minor offense. A routine record check is made, and the Gulfport Police Department learns that Jones is wanted for murder in Los Angeles. The L. A. County Sheriff´s Department is immediately notified. Sgt. Flowers is assigned the task of traveling to Mississippi to pick up the prisoner and return him to Los Angeles for trial. The Deep South is not a place Flowers has ever given any thought of visiting. After all, this is 1969, and desegregation is still new to these parts ... and Garland Flowers happens to be black. Born and reared in California, he has heard horrifying stories of how blacks are treated in the South, and is concerned about the kind of cooperation and assistance he will receive from the Southern law enforcement officers. But his reception is not what he expects. The absence of racial prejudice that he encounters upon

Texas - 1881 - Twenty- one-year-old Matt Scanlon, having recently graduated from journalism school, arrives in Texas filled with hopes of writing about life in the West. On the westbound stagecoach out of Fort Worth he makes the acquaintance of Wade McAllister, owner of the largest ranch in that part of the country. It is the beginning of a strong and lasting friendship.In the coming months Matt is kidnapped following a bank robbery, left for dead on the open prairie, falls in love with McAllister's daughter, takes part in a cattle round-up and befriends a noted gunfighter. A person of strong Christian faith, Matt becomes a leading force in the building of the first church within a radius of sixty miles.This is a story of finding a home, love, adventure, forgiveness and Christian charity at the expansive McAllister ranch.