MONARCH Casco-Viejo inner lifeblood

Monarch-Casco Viejo Inner Lifeblood is a raw-edged psychological suspense thriller novel about the infamous femme fatale detective known simply as Monarch, named after the beautiful but highly toxic butterfly. Her tall frame and attractive Scandinavian appearance are famous throughout Casco Viejo, heralded for her street-smart cunning and stubborn independence but feared more for her unforgiving vengeance. 

Monarch has always marched to a different drummer, continually pushing herself with searching thoughts, suspicious of everything and everyone, and looking at things from a different perspective. Casco Viejo, the old town of Panama City, Panama, is one of those viewpoints. It’s her inner lifeblood. But she can sometimes be a little too bizarre through her admission, as when she pretends to step back in time. She enjoys gazing upon a street scene within the tatty landmark, perhaps looking down a cobbled alley or peering into an open doorway...then squinting even more as she envisions herself transformed into the late 17th century when the Spaniards still occupied Panama City. She likes those kinds of distractions. They help settle her down and, strangely, clear her mind. 

Casco Viejo is no longer the polished jewel of its colonial heyday. Instead, it’s caught in a time warp – a notorious crime-ridden diamond-in-the-rough. It remains as it has for many decades, overtaken for the most part by the poorest of society who have nowhere else to live, nowhere else to go...squatters occupying any vacant building, any dilapidated structure. So... this shining image of Spanish invincibility lies silently decaying, more each day, holding its breath, waiting for foreign investors to restore it to its former glory. 

Monarch was still groggy, looking for her first cup of coffee, when an informant told her of the mutilation. She knew she only had a few minutes before she had to leave the decayed Casco Viejo building before the military police arrived. Even though the horrific scene would be indelibly branded in her memory, she quickly documented what remained intact of the corpse and the strewn surgically-severed body parts with her cell phone camera. It was an obvious crime of passion, designed to be a very slow, agonizing death. Monarch knew she had tread too far and was being watched, but there was no turning back. 

Monarch is a series of psychological suspense mysteries.

Rob Kircher is a consistently 5-star reviewed psychological suspense thriller author.

Copyright © Robert W. Kircher 2024-2025. All rights reserved.

This is a factual account of times and events from the life of Boyd Holifield, an American military survivor of the infamous 63-mile Bataan Death March… an event so unimaginable that it shocked the world by its sheer brutality, butchery and senseless murders. 

The incident and documented atrocities took place in the early days of World War II on Luzon Island in the Philippines known as the Battle of Bataan. It was preceded by nearly four months of fierce battles between the defending American and Filipino forces and the invading troops of the Japanese Imperial Army. 

On April 6th 1942, US Army Major General Edward King capitulated to the Japanese, resulting in the largest surrender of a military force in American history, over 79,500 American and Filipino troops. The physical and emotional trauma, devastating lose of pride and dignity and complete and utter sense of abandonment of those Allied men and women was best summoned up by Frank Hewlett, the only American journalist left in the islands after the Battle of Bataan:

We are the battling bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam;
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces;
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces;
And nobody gives a damn.

Many historians, military commanders and political representatives have long believed that General Douglas MacArthur was possessed by a deeply flawed personality. He was a commander with a mind that was too closed and inflexible for him to readily deduce an enemy's strategic and tactical goals or options, and this impaired his capacity to take appropriate measures to counter them. He ignored unpleasant realities when it did not suit him to acknowledge them, and tended to surround himself with servile staff officers who were aware of this dangerous weakness and indulged it. A surprise move by an enemy could produce paralyzing indecision at MacArthur's headquarters. 

He distanced himself from his troops and was indifferent to their welfare. He was also a conceited man, with a passion for self-glorification, and incapable of admitting serious military mistakes or learning from them. 

These character flaws would lead him in the Philippines to squander his military resources and sacrifice his troops for the sake of his own vanity. This was the man President Roosevelt had placed in command of the United States army and air forces in the Philippines.

Rob Kircher is a consistently 5-star reviewed psychological suspense thriller author.

Copyright © Robert W. Kircher 2024-2025. All rights reserved.