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ISBN-10: 1500702714
ISBN-13: 9781500702717
Edition: N/A
List price: $14.99
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Description:
Author Richard Jan does it again with the tenth novel in his exciting and dramatic series, DYING TO SUCCEED. This novel, CASUALTIES OF WORDS, continues the intriguing developments of John Van Laan, CEO of an international gem company. Like a dear friend, John emerges throughout these ten novels as a character about whom we really care. We empathize with his life, which is full of doubts, threats, loves, and adventures. We feel protective toward him as he attempts to sort through all the forces pulling him in one direction and then another. Over the course of these adventures, we have also come to know and care about his female companions, whom he loves and who are sensitive and supportive… lovers. Yet, the author does not let us get too close to them, for inevitably and eventually they die. At the end of this tenth novel, we wonder about the future of Rachel, the intelligent, sensitive, beautiful cancer doctor, and we truly hope her relationship with John will survive. But we have faced the loss of love before. We will simply have to wait to see the outcome of this relationship in the next novel.Like his previous novels, with such captivating names as LIVING WITH DEATH, AFRAID OF HOPE, CHASING AFTER TIME, and the others in this DYING TO SUCCEED series, Richard Jan takes us on an exciting journey as John seeks to protect himself, his lover, and his country. All of Jan's novels deal with the struggles of life and death; probe the deeper meanings of spirituality, sexuality, desires, wants versus needs, and from whence do we find true value in life; and they raise existential questions about God, the nature of good and evil, and what drives our capacities for inhumane acts. These novels have at their center the quest for and question about Power---its nature, its ability to corrupt, its emptiness in the face of love. Ultimately, Jan's novels deal with our essential powerlessness. Yet, all the while, they are entertaining and engaging reads.CASUALTIES OF WORDS is no exception. Politics and corrupt political forces have always lurked in the corners and served as motifs in these novels. In this, the tenth novel, politics is front and center. The evil, power-hungry, mysterious "House" and its secretive members' efforts to destroy President Obama ring frighteningly true, for we realize, as this novel dramatizes, that there are evil people willing to lie, smear, destroy for their own sake of righteousness and control. In the serous and alarming context of this "House," self-righteous and "God-Ordained" duty drive these men (always men) to threaten the very foundations of freedom, democracy, and decency. That IS the warning this novel sounds. To thwart these attacks on our political health, we again meet the likable CIA agent Charlie and his assistant Bill, who are more fully developed in this novel. The novel plays out the tension John Van Laan faces between love of country and love of Rachel. The conflict between the two give the novel its energy and drama. Well crafted, like his other nine novels, Mr. Jan given us another adventure story well worth reading and, in the process, raises important questions about forces at work in our country seeking to wreck our very foundations. In this novel, these forces, for now, are successfully abated, but not without lost innocence and heavy prices paid. Read CASUALTIES OF WORDS.Robert J. Van Dellen, Ph.D.Retired College President, Professor, & Businessman