Publisher's Synopsis
Three robbers wearing Alfred E. Newman rubber masks rob a Dallas bank of $20 million and several safe deposit boxes containing gold. During the robbery a killer handcuffs two men together to a barred gate and executes them with a .22 bullet to the head. The invasion robbers move with military precision and vanish with the money and gold. A newly-commissioned Texas Ranger, Hank Garcia, chases the gold and money to Spain, South Africa, Panama. Not only is the vanished gold a mystery, but also the motive for murder. Hank's 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, gets involved and vanishes. FBI Agent Naomi Robertson works with Hank and becomes a love interest. Some of the other characters that lend color to the story include, Emo Etto a Nigerian soldier of fortune; Wan Ol Key, a 130-pound martial arts expert using a Mongolian passport; Sheikha Eisha ben Ali, wife of a mysterious Arab of questionable existence, who can charm the gold out of men's pockets; Handsome Jorge Sanchez, a Panamanian lover of women and gold; Nurse Alberta Shehzad whom Hank covets; Emile Deutchmann, South African soldier of fortune; and two beautiful young women, Gayle and Katie, who are involved more than they know. Regardless of numerous suspects and possibilities, Hank's excellent detective work triumphs. If you like mysteries, action, interesting characters, frequent changes of scenes, an adventure story with romance, but no gutter language, you will like this novel. About the author: Joe B. Hewitt started writing as a reporter for the Lima, Ohio, News. He covered the police beat, and later the courthouse beat. He went under cover for three months and did an expose of vice and crime in Lima and Allen County. During that time his life was threatened, and he believed he needed to be armed, but Ohio law said only sworn and bonded peace officers could carry concealed weapons. The sheriff of nearby Auglaize County, where Hewitt resided, appointed him a special deputy sheriff investigator, sworn and bonded, but not paid. Hewitt was promoted to national and international news editor and occupied the city desk's slot from which he coordinated other editors' work. He later was editor and publisher of three different Texas weeklies, two of which he owned. He continued to write non-fiction books, articles and curriculum. Murder on the Sky Ride was his first novel, which was set in 1978 in San Marcos, Texas. This novel is set in 2007 in Dallas, Texas, and has a second generation of characters from the first novel.
