Publisher's Synopsis
In Code Name: Erelim, genius, New York detective, Sherrod Colsne, receives a cry for help from a childhood friend of his country of origin, England. Sir Guy Hugo de May, Marquis of Maubrey, once head of MI6, and now President and CEO of Tower Of London Aegis, or TO-LA, is in Jacksonville, Florida for a conference with an American partner firm, Biocon, and Organic Processing Technologies, Inc., or OPTI, a rival enterprise claiming that it owned the rights to a very special CPU, or at least the bio-electrical materials and manufacturing procedures used in producing it. That processor, in the final developmental stage at Biocon, together with software developed by TOLA, constituted a system referred to as "Erelim" (ac-cording to some ancient Jewish and Christian texts, the highest rank of angels, and defenders of God's throne). Some very disturbing incidents have taken place at Denham Court, a substantial house situated on at least a couple of acres of riverfront property, at the end of Desmond Street, in Avondale, an old and refined neighborhood of Jacksonville. Using what are, for him, words of uncommon urgency, the Marquis's request for assistance prompts Sherrod Colsne to go south in the hottest season of the year-completely against his wonts. Even so, he does not compromise in his refusal to fly. Along with his dauntless associate and chronicler, Monty Weston, Colsne hurriedly packs so as to catch Amtrak's Silver Meteor at Penn Station. What follows is a deceptively intricate train of events wherein one of the conference attendees is shot, and Monty is almost mortally poisoned. The Erelim device is in fact a long-predicted technology of the most profound implications, organically-based computer processors, and potentially threatening intelligence and security agencies and processes the world over. Sherrod Reynard Colsne's incisive genius, and his employment of all necessary resources, brings to light the culprit, while Monty's hair-trigger reactions prevent further injury or deaths. Conjuring reminiscence of Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes, and others, the main char-acter, Sherrod Colsne, combines elements of many of our beloved 19th and early 20th centu-ries gentlemen crime fighters. Quite tall and slender, yet a fervid and virtuoso gourmet, a highly gifted pianist, he can nonetheless, in an instant transform into a deadly exponent of the most artistic and subtile of marshal arts, Aikido. Most importantly, he possesses staggering genius, amplified in its impress on others by a most anachronous eccentricity. His temperament and wonts hailing directly from an earlier era, he is sometimes sedentary, and always in danger of "going Greek," as Monty Weston terms it, escaping to his fifth-floor retreat, his "little corner of Achaia"), Conversely, when a case is on, can be driven almost mad by inaction, must see the scene of the crime, and examine it carefully. Unlike many others, famous for such idiosyncratic ways, Colsne likes and appreciates women, and below his staid and icy exterior is supremely romantic. Counterbalancing the sidereal Sherrod Colsne, Montague Boyd "Monty" Weston, though sharing much of his master's superannuate ways, very much embraces the world of technology, and frequently fills in his boss's knowledge gaps in that realm. He is also the quintessential "man of action," more impulsive in his reaction to, and anticipation of danger and violence. Indeed his rescue of Colsne in the Claudia Sicco kidnapping is what brought the two together, and began what promises to be a life-long association, of close, if sometimes salty and piquant. Together with Colsne's inscrutable manner and methods, Monty's wit and insouciance combine to entertain and challenge those who love intrigue, action, and lestendres sentiments de l'amour.
