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Ed Protzel grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, the product of a Jewish father and part-Cherokee mother. He specializes in creating fictional characters — outsiders and gamesters, male and female, on lonely, often deadly, quests, seeking justice, love, and fulfillment against society’s blindness. Ed began writing screenplays, shifting to writing novels after earning a master’s degree in English literature/creative writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. At one point, he pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles to see if he could make it in Hollywood, doing some freelance work for 20th Century Fox. To date, Ed’s had four novels published by TouchPoint Press: his Civil War-era “DarkHorse Trilogy” (‘The Lies That Bind,” set in antebellum Mississippi; “Honor Among Outcasts,” set in Civil War Missouri; and on Oct. 23, 2020, “Something in Madness,” set in Mississippi during Reconstruction); as well as his sci-fi mystery/thriller, “The Antiquities Dealer.” He lives in St. Louis. Find Ed at: EdProtzel.com.

Trapped in a world of overwhelming terror, never underestimate the power of friendship and love. After a harrowing escape from Mississippi, abolitionist Durksen Hurst, his fiancée Antoinette DuVallier, and their friends — a group of undocumented slaves — land in guerrilla-infested Civil War Missouri, the most savage whirlwind of destruction, cruelty, and death in American history. Trapped in a terrifying cycle of murder and revenge, scarred by Quantrill’s cold-blooded Lawrence massacre and the Union army’s ruthless Order No. Eleven, Durk and everyone he cares for soon find themselves entangled in a struggle for their very survival. Honor Among Outcasts takes readers on a pulse-pounding journey of desperate men and women caught up in the merciless forces of hatred and fear that tear worlds apart, and the healing power of friendship to bring them together.

Kindle Price: $4.99

Category: Literature & Fiction; History

Even the antebellum South’s tangled webs of deceit could not shackle the insatiable human heart. Broke and despondent, half-breed abolitionist Durksen Hurst returns to Mississippi seeking redemption for his disreputable past — and maybe some glory. When he encounters a dozen hungry slaves hiding in the wilds, he persuades them to build a plantation with him as partners — a scheme that will threaten the town’s dominant family: the brilliant, mad Widow French and her tortured son, Devereau. When Antoinette DuVallier, a mysterious woman from New Orleans with unknown ties to the Frenches, arrives desperately seeking her missing boy, long-buried secrets are exposed that tear asunder the once-sleepy hamlet. As the tangled webs of deceit unravel, each startling revelation shines a fresh light on what it means to be a man or a woman, free or enslaved — indeed, on what it means to be human.

Kindle Price: $4.99

Category: Literature & Fiction; History

Appomattox ended the war with a penstroke…but the struggle for freedom had only begun. 1865. After the Civil War, Durksen Hurst and three black friends return home to a devastated Mississippi, the sole survivors of a Union colored cavalry regiment. But instead of peace, they find unregenerate Confederates who reject emancipation still in charge. Undeterred, Durk opens a law practice to help disenfranchised freedmen — only to be threatened by powerful planters and nightriders. A black school is burned; a petition march to Jackson is terrorized. And when one of his friends goes missing, Durk is horrified to discover Black Codes being used to force freedmen into brutal servitude. Clever Durk schemes to liberate them, but must contend with armed ruffians — and a rigged court system. Will fire and bullets prevail? In this concluding chapter of Ed Protzel’s DarkHorse Trilogy, Something in Madness illuminates Reconstruction, the least understood epoch in American history, exposing the origin of America’s ongoing racial divide.

Kindle Price: $5.99

Category: Literature & Fiction; History

An attempt to perfect humanity takes a tragic turn in a fateful clash between science and religion. When Miriam Solomon, the love of David Greenberg’s life, phones him at his antiquities gallery in St. Louis, the black hole at the center of his heart shudders. Twenty years earlier, Miriam had inexplicably run off to Israel with his best friend, Solly, a brilliant but nerdy young scientist. Now she tells David that Solly has committed suicide and she needs his aid on a secret research project Solly left unfinished: to acquire the one remaining nail from the crucifixion of Jesus. Is she telling the truth? And why does that nail have such significance? As the pair is pursued by Christian, Jewish and Muslim extremists all seeking the priceless relic, David attempts to decipher the sole clue to its whereabouts. Is humankind’s future at stake?

Kindle Price: $7.99

Category: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense; Science Fiction & Fantasy