Hells Quest 1971, John W. Cassell. (Paperback 1592991971)

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Hell's Quest 1971
Author: John W. Cassell

"NOTHING IS AS IT APPEARS," warns psychic Ramesh Patel when 23 year old John Cassell asks him what his watchwords for the year 1971 should be. The succeeding 12 months proves that truer words were never spoken. Parted from his dream Post Office job by President Nixon in his January 1971 budget cutbacks and from his intended life?s partner by... more » two rogue Albuquerque cops a few days later, Cassell flees to his home town on the East Coast where an old lady he befriended a couple years back leaves him millions of dollars worth of hot diamonds and sets him on a terrifying journey through the dark labyrinth of human greed and treachery. In an effort to learn how to turn the diamonds into cash, he sets off to New York City masquerading as a business administration grad student interviewing diamond brokers for a PhD dissertation. Cassell fools no one, but beautiful, sophisticated diamond industry junior executive Nancy Collingwood, always on the alert for an opportunity that will free her from a debt incurred years before, has Cassell believing she is his ideal teammate in his once in a lifetime attempt at the Big Score. As the year moves on, the two young people find themselves in a fight for survival against Dutch diamond racketeer Walther Van Der Groot, who will give them the price they want, provided he cannot kill them first and get it all for free. In the course of several narrow escapes, Cassell sees unmistakable signs that his dream business partner is not the person she claims to be, but necessity and wishful thinking compel him to stay hooked to her and her secret and perhaps deadly past. Between narrow escapes from death and fitful efforts to reclaim the happy life that he had found in New Mexico, Cassell works his job at the Atlantic City Bus Terminal surrounded by pleasant whiskey drinking, numbers playing co-workers, all the while building a relationship with Atlantic City Hospital nurse and Vietnam veteran Laura Christian, who shortly develops unanticipated ideas of her own about their future. The stress of the constant battle to survive, plagued with rising doubts about his ever more suspicious ?business partner?, eventually causes Cassell to abandon the quest and seek warmth, love and peace in a life with Laura. Resolution is met with frustration, however, as Laura, in a stunning about face, leaves for Tokyo in answer to a call for help from a former boyfriend. Frightened and isolated in his suspicion, but unable without Laura to just give up his dreams for a life of ease, he leaves with Nancy in November for North Africa and the scheduled exchange with Van Der Groot under the protection of members of the Moroccan Secret Police. He soon finds the battle to stay alive has only begun as he lands with Nancy at Tangier Airport in the middle of a bloody insurrection. Their Ministry of Interior helicopter narrowly avoids being shot down as they are flown to a police outpost in the Atlas Mountains. Their secret police accomplices intended to motor from there to the place where the exchange of diamonds for cash is to occur, but a surprise rebel offensive winds them up trapped among a company of panicky retreating gendarmes, men who would kill them in a heartbeat if they but knew what they carried with them, and who might just do it anyway to purge the curse many believe the presence of the young infidels has brought upon them and their chances for survival. In the course of the ensuing desperate and often despairing march through the Atlas Mountains and across the fringe of the Sahara Desert, the young Americans stare Death in the face every minute. At one point their lives are saved by the friendship of a Berber chieftain who has heard of ?the crazy American sheriff? traveling with this column of rural police and wants to meet him. At another, Pulitzer-hunting journalist Warren Howarth pulls the couple from the brink of starvation with K-ration high energy bars he is willing to trade for a scoop in the papers back home. At still another, John and Nancy secretly take some of their diamonds and brave a twelve kilometer gauntlet of bandits and snipers to re-provision their starving company. All the while Cassell is learning in one shocking dose after another who his partner really is and what she has waiting for him at the place of the exchange. Yet amid the starvation and bloodshed, the exhaustion and terror of this brutal march, the seeds of a miracle have been planted and start to grow, and the two young people emerge from the blood-soaked ordeal with a treasure the value of which exceeds their wildest dreams. A treasure for which, as the insurrection comes to an end in this year where nothing is at it appears, there is yet one more payment to be made? HELL?S QUEST is the story of human souls in extremis? at their worst as well as at their best. It?s a story of treachery and heroism? of young people reaching for the Heavens and older people determined they will not be allowed to succeed. It?s a story of intertwining destinies, as John and Nancy learn their actions in Morocco in December of 1971 play out to catharsis the actions of two men aboard a merchant freighter on a tragic morning in August of 1914. It is the story of the power of love to surmount impossible odds and the indomitable spirit of youth.

ISBN-13: 9781592991976
ISBN-10: 1592991971
Publication Date: 3/30/2006
Pages: 828
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Publisher: Inkwater Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 1
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Book Wiki

Common Title

HELL'S QUEST: 1971

Series

CASSELL FACTION TRILOGY 3 of 3

People/Characters

John W. Cassell (Primary Character)

Nancy Collingwood (Primary Character)

Joe Fallon (Major Character)

Mike O'Malley (Major Character)

Major Omar Ben Khedda (Major Character)

(Show all 20 People/Characters)

Real Places

Atlantic City, NJ

New York City

Tetuan, Morocco

Fez, Morocco

Margate City, NJ

(Show all 8 Real Places)

Fictional Places

Villa Vientos Frescos, North Africa

Date Grove outside of Fez

Charney Building, NY

Ministry of Interior base at Akbar [Morocco]

Important Events

Insurrection of November 1971--Army Group Sahara, Quelled by Army Groups Atlantic and Mediterranean

Genres:

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