BOOK REVIEW: TEN DAYS TO MADNESS

'There's gold in them thar' hills!'

I just finished the new book by James Clifford, 'Ten Days to Madness' and enjoyed it immensely. Set in North Carolina, the book chronicles two weeks in the life of Charlie Parker, a seemingly regular guy with a regular job, regular wife, and two regular kids.

However, as the chapters unfold, we find out that 'regular' is only the top layer of Charlie's persona. On a solo getaway to the mountains we learn of his checkered past, his precarious present, and what turns into a wild and adventurous future.

Along the way we are carried back through pre-Civil War North Carolina history, including Native American lore, and Bechtler gold. Day by day, Charlie's little vacation in a throwback mountain town becomes more intense as he tries to sort out his ancestral past and map out his future. Dotted with unexpected twists and turns and in no particular order the reader is met with wild beasts, beautiful women, an evil undertaker, Cherokee chiefs, an English barkeep, and a hermit/historian numismatist - whose shack is strewn with numismatic literature! (Likely a member of the NBS)

It's fast-paced, page-turning Madness!

There are 306 pages and 23 chapters, book-ended by prologue and epilogue, and finishing with a brief history of the Bechtler mint. A bargain in either hard copy (my choice) or e-book.

Upon finishing the book I wished there was more - but that's what good novelists do - make you anticipate the next book, and I'm already looking forward to Clifford's next 'numi-novel.'

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: NEW BOOK: TEN DAYS TO MADNESS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n18a07.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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