The Nature of Midnight

1915: A German torpedo sinks the British passenger liner, RMS Lusitania. With almost 1,200 passengers drowned, the attack is one of Germany's most vicious acts against civilians. . . .

2000: A postal worker and a customer are found murdered in a rural Montana post office. U.S. Postal Inspectors Gillian Loomis and Max Dombrowski are ordered to investigate the brutal crime. Max isn't thrilled. He'd rather be in a big city than in the boondocks. And this Loomis person . . . well, they say she killed someone by accident. Great. And she doesn't seemed thrilled with him, either. But neither has much choice. It's this or worse. When they start looking for evidence, they work together all right, uncovering the existence of three letters written in 1918 by a man named Sharpless Walker. Somehow, those letters are connected to the murders.
As Gillian and Max follow the trail of the three letters, searching for a motive for the murders, one by one the enigmatic missives disappear, leaving violence and destruction in their wake. Something about these letters is bringing death to all who touch them. When Gillian and Max locate the last letter, encrypted in WWI code, they realize they have made themselves the next targets of whoever is destroying the letters and those who hold them.

Somehow, the letters are connected to the Lusitania, and so is Sharpless Walker. Whatever dark secret was buried with Walker won't stay buried. Gillian and Max just hope that they can figure out the lethal connection of three letters, a dead man, and the tragedy of the Lusitania before the two of them become the final victims.

In this fast-paced thriller, two unlikely heroes must unravel a sinister conspiracy behind one the most shocking acts of the early twentieth century.

Robert Rice is the author of the highly acclaimed Arthurian novel, The Last Pendragon and a contemporary thriller, Agent of Judgment. A reformed lawyer, he works for the post office and lives with his family on a farm outside Bozeman, Montana.