Books with author Alan Copeland

What would you do if you learned everyone you loved had been lying to you? Nikira Ward has sought the truth for four long years. After waking from the coma brought on by her house exploding, she tells her doctors what she saw – a man with black wings dancing in the fire. When they told her she couldn’t possibly have seen a demon, Kira did the only thing she could: she immersed herself in all things good and evil. Angels and demons. Heaven and Hell. Just before her eighteenth birthday, the only person left in Kira's life – her grandmother, the Oracle – falls ill, and once again, her life is rocked off its axis. But this time she’s not alone. When a fat cat, a Nephilim, and a handful of Guardians come to her rescue, Nikira learns who she really is and what powers the Creator has bestowed upon her – the Seeker. Join Kira and the men who’ve vowed to protect her as they follow the clues only she can see on a quest to find her sister, Rhen, rescue the Oracle, and uncover the faces of evil.

Set in ever so chic South Beach, this comic detective story surrounds the exploits of two struggling private dicks, Max "Gumsandals" Cohen and his Korean partner Charles "Chuck" Song. Max's oldest daughter is getting married at the end of the week and he doesn't know how he is going to pay for the wedding. When a mysterious Cuban offers them a job to find a missing box, Max takes the assignment despite his gut feeling that something isn't quite kosher. Within a very short time, his instincts are proven right. It seems everyone is looking for the same box, including a Cuban crime syndicate known as the Black Cigar and the C.I.A. As it turns out, the box contains the mummified balls of Christopher Columbus. It seems Queen Isabella took them as collateral and made them into earrings. As long as Spain had them in its possession, it remained the most powerful nation on earth. When they disappeared, Spain's status in the world plummeted. Soon a legend grew that whoever possesses the things, becomes invincible. How Max's wife, the wharf shikseh, ends up wearing them at the wedding is part of the comic finale which involves the hijacking of the Goodyear blimp. Although propelled by this MacGuffin, the story also explores the cross-cultural milieu found in South Florida including the interactions between Jews, gooks, shiksehs, wives, Cubans, babes and the Bushido, and very large cockroaches.

Columbus had them. Isabella took them. Spain lost them. Max "Gumsandals" Cohen wants them. Bad! Looking for a box in the middle of Hurricane Andrew, two struggling middle-aged detectives, Gumsandals and Charles "Chuck" Song, are subjected to all kinds of abuse in this comic caper about Jews, Cubans, gooks, shiksehs, wives, babes and the Bushido, daughters, responsibilities, men in trenchcoats, talking zippers, mysterious crime syndicates, bananas, weekend revolutionaries, organ doning, exploding cigars, surfers, cockroaches, Little H, GhettoWorld, and the hijacking of the Goodyear blimp in Miami. Written from the cockeyed perspective of a native Miamian who's seen it all and lived to tell about it, "Crown Jewels" will probably entertain and offend nearly everyone.