"The most important work of fiction I have read in over a decade."
-- Dr. Edgar Suter, Chairman of Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research

After the repeal of Prohibition, Congress passes an obscure federal gun law, written to promote massive noncompliance and thus give idled Prohibition agents something to do. Three decades later, a boy born into a well-to-do family becomes immersed in shooting sports, and firearms become his lifelong passion. An expert with rifle and pistol who gives free personal protection classes to women, Henry Bowman is just one of the millions of people who comprise America's "gun culture." Because of his upbringing, Henry is sensitized to government's capacity to abuse its power. As years pass, Henry watches continued federal assaults on the gun culture with growing alarm. Concurrently, Henry's adult life intersects with the lives of two very different people: Cindy, a woman whose instincts for self-preservation help her survive virtual slavery inside an organized crime syndicate, and Ray, a lawyer who left the U.S. in 1963 and returns thirty years later. Now near middle age, Henry is alone at a friend's house one night. He uses his skills to thwart an armed break-in only to discover that the assault was not a burglary but a raid. Henry's victims are not street criminals but federal agents, and with mounting horror he listens to the captive survivors describe the operation they were carrying out. With the Ruby Ridge killings and the Waco massacre burned into his memory, Henry knows he has just given himself a death sentence. He faces the law enforcement assets of the entire U.S. Government as the country's future hangs in the balance. Despite the odds, Henry has no intention of becoming a martyr. Henry Bowman is a resourceful man with money, intelligence, and motivation, and he has history on his side.

 

John Ross (shown above in Denver, October 20, 2001) is an investment broker and financial adviser in St. Louis, Missouri. He has degrees in English and Economics from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Mr. Ross is a certified personal protection instructor, and the author of Self-Defense Laws and Violent Crime Rates in the United States, which was the first published work to empirically assess the effect of concealed-carry laws on violent crime in America. He has authored several firearms-related technical articles for Precision Shooting magazine and Machine Gun News. Since the age of eight, Mr. Ross has been an avid participant in many aspects of the shooting sports. He fires upwards of 20,000 rounds of ammunition per year and is, by his own admission, a member of the gun culture.