Sterling Jason Jackson was a comedian and television/movie star of such acclaim, nothing seemed out of his reach. Then he dared try to purchase a national television network, and things for him not only fell apart, but turned deadly... Pretty Paul Phillips was the heartthrob of millions of young pop music enthusiasts, and made hundreds of millions of dollars. Then he purchased the catalogues of some historic rock and roll legends, was master of his own catalogues and was determined to reign supreme over the music publishing industry. He was on his way... until his efforts to buy the entire music production house he belonged to turned fatal... Urban schoolchildren, primarily, were being diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) by the millions. But was the "malady" merely a case of natural childish skitters due to an overabundance of sugar, while the "illness" was backed by a team of clinicians on the payroll of the pharmaceuticals, which stood to make untold billions off the required medication? Old Roscoe Rutherford Rutledge had a conspiracy theory for every ill that befell black people in his native Washington, D.C. and beyond, and was not afraid to preach these theories from his perch on his front porch. But will his assessment of the roots of the AIDS virus, ADHD and gentrification ruffle the wrong feathers and place him in the crosshairs of forces which really did not care for even the speculative airing of such?
Ronald R. Hanna was born in Washington, D.C. He attended public schools in the Southeast section of the city and entered military service. Honorably discharged two years later, he used the GI Bill to attend the University of the District of Columbia. Having no idea what to major in, but having discovered a yen to write as a military police often working twelve-hour night shifts, he viewed with interest the college newspaper, The Free Voice, which did not confine itself to college events but instead addressed topical issues within the District community, the nation and, indeed, the world. Having always been an avid reader, 'The Voice' immediately stimulated his interest. He found the newspaper office in a nondescript office building across from the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown Washington, volunteered to distribute the paper while studying the possibilities of majoring in journalism. In time he became distribution manager and took occasional pictures for the paper, eventually becoming photo editor while focusing his educational pursuits in the Federal City College Department of Communicative and Performing Arts. He began writing news, refined his skills under the tutelage of advanced students and the department's faculty. News editor then, editor-in-chief, Ron quickly began to spread the Voice far and wide, took on an internship with the Washington Informer, a city tabloid, began a column on his Anacostia neighborhood for the Washington Afro-American newspaper, interned at nights for NBC-TV's Washington affiliate, WRC-TV. Became a full-time writer for the Afro-American. Through his reporting for the Afro, Ron gained valued and wide-ranging experiences, interviewing, among many, Bill Cosby. Photographing, among many, Stevie Wonder, Dick Gregory, Melba Moore, Jesse Jackson. But something continually plagued the young and quite promising writer: Back across the bridge, in Anacostia, as in so many communities, drugs and their related violence was wreaking havoc on the lives of many of his friends. The loss of a younger sister to this violence near shattered him. The paralysis of another younger sister in a city shooting quieted his pen and deposited him in attitudinal disarray which was itself near fatal. He regrouped, put pen to paper yet again when computer technology eased the path to mass production. In time he would self-publish a series of novels, almost back to back. This is his 17th.
