Books by Thomas Lawrence

Fethiye is a small seaport on Turkey's Aegean shore where each summer starting in May tourists from across Europe and England flock to exchange gloomy skies and rain for sand and sea and sometimes sex, beneath a hot bright Mediterranean sun. Connie Cullingsworth, whose life this novel is a portrait of, flies to Fethiye to rescue her daughter who has been robbed and will need money. Accompanying Connie is her second husband, Charles, a computer whiz who lives in his world of cyberspace and remains indifferent to her needs and desires, as she discovers too late. A teacher schooled in Romanticism, Connie had always dreamt of seeing the Mediterranean, birthplace of western art and literature; and in Bea's Bar, she meets Omer whose charismatic charm she finds she is unable to resist when he offers to teach her to swim. As a girl Connie had almost drowned in a Scottish loch, and ever since she has feared water. But in the end Connie must learn that Paradise has its darker side

The novel TRACKS: a story from the Vietnam War operates on the surface as a suspense drama structured around a triangle. At the center is Ingrid, a sultry young German woman who is fought over by Paul Carroll and Ralph Benson: friends on the surface but, as both will discover, enemies underneath. Paul is educated, fears violence and is anti-Vietnam War while Ralph, a former M.P. in the U.S. Army, has no problem with violence, particularly against women. When Paul and Ingrid hide, Ralph sets out determined to find them and reclaim Ingrid whom he regards as his property. Both Paul and Ralph are railroaders and Ralph finds the couple at a place called Wishram: a railroad yard and less-than town deep inside the Columbia River Gorge. He waits until Paul has left town on a freight before assaulting Ingrid at gunpoint, then setting out to avenge himself on Paul. But Ingrid knows her lover is no match for Ralph.

"e;It is in an unrelated incident years before that Why I bought Belcher's...has its root: at a wedding. My daughter was attending her girlfriend's father's wedding to a physically pretty woman: but with an alcohol problem. During the partying the bride, very drunk according to my daughter, produced a loaded pistol which, brandishing, she threatened to use against her guests. This was before even Columbine High, before the series of gun-related massacres that followed and made me aware that the United States had a very real problem. "e;But how I tied a wedding gone horribly wrong to a series of gun-related massacres, and both to such a great novel as Don Quixote I still do not know: except that unconsciously I must have. "e;Consider the similarities between Cervantes' great novel and my more modest effort. Don Quixote is driven to madness by over-indulgence in the romance novels of his day.

The solrom: a soul journey to heal within, by going without Two travellers collide in the wild country on the island of Bracka. Geeter, not much more than a boy, is running from the shadows cast by the death of his father.