The Cahokia Conspiracy: A Dave Rifkin Mystery - Paperback

by Howard J. Schwach (Author)

The spread of a deadly ancient pathogen leads Dave and Linda to the remains of what was once the largest city in North America and to a deadly confrontation with a greedy businessman and the biker gang that protects him from justice. Dave and Linda expected an easy investigation when they are asked by the state to track the spread of a new and unknown virus in the wake of the past COVID-19 pandemic. Their investigation takes them first to the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg and then to the gated religious enclave of Kiryas Joel in upstate New York, where they are met with suspicion and animosity. After discovering that Patient Zero in the new virus was an Orthodox Jew who was working at an archaeological dig called Cahokia, hard on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis, they travel there and find that they have become embroiled in some sort of cabal that includes the chief archaeologist at the dig, the chief medical officer of a local hospital and some employees of a Bio-Pharma company that manufactures pills touted to enhance male virility. After several attempts on their lives, they wind up along the Green River in Kentucky, where once stood a town named Paradise, a town that was completely denuded by a former coal company strip-mining the area. As always, danger and excitement follow the couple as they try and complete their once routine assignment.