In 1997 four people suffering from debilitating and incurable ailments are suddenly and inexplicably cured after exposure to some tropical homeopathic remedy. Their lives and the lives of their families are obviously impacted by this remarkable occurrence knowing that they are no longer facing imminent death, or suffer through life with a permanent disability. Father Pavlos, a Greek Orthodox priest, becomes the steward of the leaves and is determined to return the magical herbs back to their original owner, Wyan Setiawan, an Indonesian doctor. Almost five years later, in 2001, the four recipients—an engineer, a customs agent, a grade-school teacher’s young daughter and a police detective are all re-visited to see how their treatment has changed their lives. Did they make good use of their gift, or did they squander their second chance? When Father Pavlos finally meets Dr. Setiawan in 2010, the discussion of what was ultimately done with the herbs comes to a startling climax that will cause one to re-examine their own sense of morality. Dr. Setiawan’s colleague and friend, a Surgical Oncologist, tries to understand the cosmological and religious implications of the treatment and his conclusions are remarkably intertwined with current science and ancient mysticism.

Literature & Fiction

Rycus, Mitchell J.

Contemporary

iUniverse

Max's Fools is about an African-American engineer, obsessed with contacting his mother who passed when Max was only seven years old. It was two days before Max's 77th birthday and his children were throwing him a party at his daughter's house when they asked him to tell the whole story of those unnerving events earlier in his life. Max realized then that it was time to recount his mission into that ungodly world of the occult, and the pain it caused him, his employees, and their families. He also realized, when they asked him to tell them the true facts about what was going on back then, that his activities must have caused pain and much misunderstanding in his own family as well. He told them everything about all the paranormal activities he tried, including the voodoo ceremony and other unusual approaches he took trying to reach out to his dead mother. He was convinced that he was on the right track in contacting her, but he just fell short of actually reaching his goal.  He felt that he needed to draw on his own experiences and culture to accomplish the task. Finding a cousin, almost by accident, who was knowledgeable about his family's background into mysticism and the dark arts, he modified his approach and the results were astounding as well as terrifying. Max's Fools is a compelling look into the mind of an educated engineer who was lured into a non-science based approach to try and discover his own demons.author_bio: I'm an emeritus professor of urban planning whose career runs the gamut from aerospace engineering to academia. I live and work in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am the author of five other novels, and my most recent novel, "The Artist," was released in January. My full vita is on; sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/mitchell-j-rycus/keywords: ESP, Holography, Latent Imagery, Photography, Research, Telekinesis, Voodoo

Max's Fools

Genre Fiction

First Edition Design Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rycus, Mitchell J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rycus, Mitchell J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rycus, Mitchell J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

T

Max's Fools