THE CAHOKIA CONSPIRACY

A Dave Rifkin Mystery

by Howard J. Schwach

 

Book Details

The spread of a deadly ancient pathogen leads Dave and Linda to the remains of what was once the largest city in North America and to a deadly confrontation with a greedy businessman and the biker gang that protects him from justice

Dave and Linda expected an easy investigation when they are asked by the state to track the spread of a new and unknown virus in the wake of the past COVID-19 pandemic. Their investigation takes them first to the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg and then to the gated religious enclave of Kiryas Joel in upstate New York, where they are met with suspicion and animosity. After discovering that Patient Zero in the new virus was an Orthodox Jew who was working at an archaeological dig called Cahokia, hard on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis, they travel there and find that they have become embroiled in some sort of cabal that includes the chief archaeologist at the dig, the chief medical officer of a local hospital and some employees of a Bio-Pharma company that manufactures pills touted to enhance male virility. After several attempts on their lives, they wind up along the Green River in Kentucky, where once stood a town named Paradise, a town that was completely denuded by a former coal company strip-mining the area. As always, danger and excitement follow the couple as they try and complete their once routine assignment.

 

About the Author

Howard J. Schwach

Retired New York City teacher and community newspaper editor Howard Schwach is a published author with several young adult educational books and three adult novels under his belt. He spends much of his time when he is not writing on ZOOM facilitating groups of senior citizens who want to fulfill their dream of writing and publishing a novel. This is Schwach’s fourth adult novel, a continuation of his popular Dave Rifkin mysteries. His first was American 587 Heavy, a novel centered on the tragic crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in his hometown of Rockaway (NY) on November 12, 2001. His second, a novel centered on the age-old conflict between Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the consequences of that conflict on a group of aging Jewish tourists from New York City visiting the Holy Land, introduced Dave Rifkin, a retired NYPD detective who seems always to fall unknowingly into international crisis. Entitled The Masada Complex, the book was well-received and led to the second Rifkin mystery, Ain’t Love Enough, set in Music City, Nashville (TN). The Cahokia Conspiracy is the third novel in the Dave Rifkin series and takes Dave and his wife, Linda, to the remains of an ancient Mississippian city on the Mississippi River, following the spread of a virus that rivals COVID-19 that reveals a conspiracy to cover up the genesis of the virus by a greedy pharmaceutical executive who sees big dollars for the company developing a vaccine against the ancient disease.

Also by Howard J. Schwach

American 587 Heavy
THE MASADA COMPLEX
Ain't Love Enough
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM_eBook