Strings — Roger Simpson

When do you know that something has been the right deed, but for the wrong reason? The novel Strings answers that question. It leads from police harassment of a working class San Francisco neighborhood to a distant, mysterious city beneath the Sahara desert. It connects the strings between many unique characters: a powerful San Francisco politician, an ex-cop-turned-reporter and his ex-partner (a police lieutenant and Master of Zahu, the most ancient of the martial arts), and Esse, a man who comes from his desert city where advanced experimentation has evolved a science and technology far beyond the West to supposedly create a plan for world peace. The reporter and detective are both disillusioned with day-to-day life, but their investigation of the harassment problem suddenly opens a direct line to Esse's city. His "right deed" for world peace may be for the wrong reason which might evolve in an attack against the West, city by city. They join with a brilliant renegade scientist and Esse's only beloved daughter in a race against time to unravel the strings of power. How they get there and what they must do brings the novel into the hands of a terrorist who sees peace as the end of the West.