Böcker av Mike Murphey

In the mid-21st Century, a top-secret consortium of corporations and governments have made time travel possible, only to realize that intruding on the past has been a terrible mistake.At the program's outset, a thousand scientists, engineers and support staff were confined to a subterranean complex where a corporate contributor specializing in artificial intelligence equipped apartments with Happy Home Companion software.Time traveler Marta Hamilton had little enough tolerance for other people intruding in her life, much less a software Dear Abby, so Marta bullies her Happy Home Companion into silence.At last convinced of the grave dangers time travel represents, government overseers suspend operations. Only the Happy Home Companions remain.Marta and fellow traveler Marshall Grissom hope they can finally leave the past behind, but when a federal judge is murdered, they understand their vulnerability to horrible manipulations by future counterparts.Marta and Marshall return to the Arizona desert where they confront a Happy Home Companion cult of vengeance, the outlaw Gillis Kerg, and an evangelical zealot waging a war on science.

Of all the groups to emerge during the folk era of the 1960's, first the Chad Mitchell Trio and later The Mitchell Trio were unequivocally the best. Their complex harmonies, sense of comedic timing and stage presence were unique to the folk movement. They didn't enjoy the commercial success of other groups because their material made political and social statements that radio and television refused to play. They were wildly popular, though, on college campuses throughout the country during this turbulent time and fostered political and social awareness among thousands of young men and women as they faced the challenging era ahead.But as Mike, Chad and Joe Frazier raced along a frantic treadmill of rehearsals, recording sessions, nightclubs and concerts, Mike and Chad began to realize the demand for musical perfection was the only thing they had in common. Their personalities were and remain polar opposites. When Chad left in 1965, neither mourned the parting. John Denver replaced Chad. Two years later, Joe's demons caught up to him forcing Mike and John to fire Joe. When folk reunions became popular, fans and folk historians agreed that The Trio was the one group that would never take the stage again. Their schism was just too great.Mike and Chad and Joe hadn't spoken in twenty years. Then came a call. I will if he will. Their mentor and music director Milt Okun worried they were making a mistake. They couldn't possibly be as good as their fans remembered.They were. Mike and Chad kept their day jobs, and their distance. But once again, they shared the music.

The year is 2044. Housed in a secret complex beneath the eastern Arizona desert, a consortium of governments and corporations have undertaken a program on the scale of the Manhattan Project to bludgeon the laws of physics into submission and make time travel a reality. Fraught with insecurities, Marshall Grissom has spent his whole life trying not to call attention to himself, so he can't imagine he would be remotely suited for the role of time travel pioneer. He's even less enthusiastic about this corporate time-travel adventure when he learns that nudity is a job requirement. The task would better match the talents of candidates like the smart and beautiful Sheila Schuler, or the bristle-tough and rattlesnake-mean Marta Hamilton. As the project evolves into a clash between science and corporate greed, conflicts escalate. Those contributing the funding are mostly interested in manipulating time travel for profit, and will stop at nothing, including murder, to achieve their goals.

At every crossroads he has encountered in life, Sean Brody has made the safe choice. In the year 2046, at the age of ninety-three, Sean is given one final opportunity to deal with his greatest regret. Sean is the only man Marshall Grissom and Marta Hamilton can find who might be able to save Sheila Schuler, their friend and fellow traveler lost in the distant reaches of time. If Sean accepts the task of traveling to his childhood in a parallel universe-with no guarantee that any aspect of the past can be changed-Sean must also accept his death in the only world he knows.

When time travelers fail test after test to significantly alter the past, most financial backers abandon the Global Research Consortium leaving veteran traveler Marta Hamilton to administer a vastly scaled-down project. She must protect the past from a greedy future, fend off political meddling, and foil a murder plot originating in a parallel universe. She presides over a conspiracy to hide the truth of her best friend's death while coping with a confusing and discomforting romantic entanglement involving fellow traveler Marshall Grissom. Marta, who has by professional necessity always distanced herself from emotional commitment, lapsed by allowing herself the luxury of friendship with Sheila Schuler and a night of wild sex with Marshall. Now, Sheila is probably dead, and-according to a genius physicists' theory-Marshall soon will be. As she assumes her role as administrator of the time travel program, Marta must choose between the risks of loving someone, or the lonely safety of emotional solitude. (No cats were harmed in the telling of this story.)