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| Al and Sandra |
Al
Pennyback Mystery Series
The Characters in this series
Albert Einstein ‘Al’
Pennyback was born in 1951 in a small East Texas town north
of Houston. His father, Hiram, was a
schoolteacher who was a World War II veteran; a tanker in an all-black tank
unit. His mother, Rachael, a housewife,
was a pacifist. She was also a great fan
of the scientist Albert Einstein, thus his name. Because of the name, he learned at an early
age to use his fists and his wits. Upon
graduation from high school in 1968, instead of going to college as his mother
wanted, Al joined the army. During the
early years of his military service his parents were swept away in a hurricane
that struck the Galveston coast, where they were visiting a relative’s beach
cottage.
Al devoted himself to his army duties; rising fast
through the ranks to sergeant major, and in 1980 received a battlefield
promotion to captain in combat in an unnamed country in one of America’s secret
wars. In 1981, while on duty in the the
Philippines, he met and married his wife Sarah, the daughter of a Philippine
army general. Their son Ethan was born
the following year.
In 1987, Al, who by now was a lieutenant colonel
in charge of a special operations team, was sent on a mission to capture or
kill a clan leader in Somalia who had slaughtered foreign aid workers,
including two Americans, because of faulty intelligence, Al’s team ended up
killing the man and his entire family.
Feeling guilty and disgusted, Al left special operations and swore never
to use a gun again.
He was reassigned to
duty in the Pentagon. In 1988, Sarah and
Ethan were killed in an auto accident.
Distraught, Al retired from the army, but his friend Quincy Chang, a former JAG officer now
partner in a DC law firm, talks him into becoming a private detective, and has
his firm put him on retainer. He hires Heather Bunche, a new secretarial
school graduate to help him do paperwork and keep track of cases.
The series starts in 1998, ten years after he
becomes a PI, with the investigation of the murder of a high school student (Color
Me Dead). During the
investigation, Al meets and eventually falls in love with Sandra Winter, a teacher at Cabot High School, a mostly minority
school in DC’s northeast area.
One of his best friends is Buster Mayweather, a DC police detective, who is the person who
notified him of his family’s death.
Buster is occasionally pulled into Al’s cases, often over the objections
of his wife Alma. The Mayweathers have
two children, twins, named Albert and Sandra, and Al and Sandra are the god
parents.
A recurring character who appeared in the first story and crops up occasionally is Lucinda 'Lucy' Garcia Mendez, a reporter for the Washington Post, who often writes about Al's exploits, and has dubbed him the 'Brown Knight.'
In the first book of the series, mention is made
of Al retiring from the army as a captain.
But, as the series progressed, it seemed to make sense that he would
have risen higher, so in Dead Men Don’t
Answer, which is due for release in December 2012, he’s made a lieutenant
colonel, and the discrepancy in the grades is explained – the army bureaucracy
pulled a boner and retired him at the rank that he’d won a battlefield promotion
to, but over ten years later discover their error and make the correction, with
the resultant windfall check for the back pay.
Al is six feet tall, weighs just under two hundred
pounds, and is proficient in a number of martial arts. He jogs regularly and meditates every
day. He’s reached an age, though, where
he has to watch his weight. He likes to
cook, but often just stops at the nearest fast food place and pigs out. When he and Sandra eat out, their favorite is
Korean, and occasionally Thai or Chinese.
Books
in this series
Dead Men Don’t Answer: In progress, due out December 2012
Art work related to the series
I occasionally do pen and ink or watercolor sketches to jog my mind about a particular story. Here is one of them; another is shown at the head of the entry along with a few of the covers:
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| Al and the ladies, from l to r, Lucy Mendez, Heather Bunche, and Sandra Winter. My other Books
In addition to the Al Pennyback mystery series, I do the following series:
Buffalo Soldier
The Chronicle of Pip of Pandara
Wallace in Underland
From time to time, I'll post stuff relating to one of these series here.
http://youtu.be/PwmQS_8t5Nc Video trailer for Buffalo Soldier: Peacekeepers .jpg)    My best-selling book is a fictionalized account of famous deputy US Marshal, Bass Reeves. 
And, I started a new mystery series, cozy mysteries set in a retirement community. As of Jan. 6, 2017, I've
done three in this series.
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