Most Popular Books by Charles Wilson

The importance of 17th century Holland in the history of European art is well known, but her contribution in other fields is less widely appreciated. Yet during the 17th century Holland was the center of world commerce, her ships sailing as far afield as the Americas, the Far East and Australia; her scientists, technologists and mathematicians set new standards of observation and analysis in astronomy, botany, optics, medicine and statistics; Grotius propounded the modern concepts of international law; the Dutch architects and engineers were in demand in France, Italy and England. Holland herself became a refuge for some of the boldest and most influential thinkers of the century. Professor Wilson describes the Dutch Republic's political evolution, the growth of its unique world economy, its influence on European ideas of trade and its achievements in art, science, literature and philosophy. Holland in the 17th century seems to have enjoyed ones of those periods, like the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England, in which all the talents are encouraged.

Raymond Keller became an Eye--a human video recorder--to forget his past. Teresa became addicted to extraterrestrial dreaming jewels because they made her remember. Together this unlikely pair become involved in an international smuggling plot that threatens to destroy them and their budding love for one another.

The staff of the hospital for the criminally insane in Davis County, Mississippi, had seen a lot in their time--but nothing like the savage killing of Judith Salter, one of their nurses. And with three escaped inmates on the loose, there is no telling which of them the butcher is or who the next victim will be. Even worse, as the danger and terror grow apace, the only eyewitness to the nurse's death is a psychopathic mass murderer who is beginning to reveal his own fearsome agenda.

Six brothers from a single family in Amherst County, Virginia, near Lynchburg, went to war with reluctance, leaving their widowed mother on the family farm. Their letters reveal, with sometimes brutal honesty, the lot that befell the foot soldier in the Civil War.

MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE It is 1975. GERDA VROUWENDIJK, under the name of Edith Bicknell, arrives in the isolated rural town of Binawarra to take up a teaching position in the local high school. Ms. Vrouwendijk is confident she can keep her disguise and purpose hidden, as well as her sinister connections. But she has not reckoned on Florence Barker. Independent Miss Barker, of mature age, outwardly severe, and feared by the townspeople (‘you will call me Miss Barker’), is not at all what she seems. Nor has the memory of a brief meeting fifteen years earlier in Middelburg, Holland, with the crippled local priest, Fr van Engelen, come back to Ms. Vrouwendijk. These slips in her otherwise meticulous planning will prove critical. Canny Miss Barker and Fr van Engelen set about discovering what Edith Bicknell is doing in their obscure little country town, and why she has an interest in the beautiful, outwardly aloof Estella Winterbine. Her motivations appear ideological but what the ideology is exactly is a mystery. A tense game of cat and mouse follows as Ms. Vrouwendijk’s manipulation of people and events becomes ever more complex. When a senior teacher is found dead at the bottom of a peak (called Death Rock by the local youth), and the local newspaper begins attacking staid Bill Huckerby, the principal of Binawarra High School, Ms. Vrouwendijk’s plans – whatever their aim – seem to have an unstoppable momentum. Then Estella goes missing. Former SAS captain and Vietnam veteran, Geoffrey Shawcross, sets off in a pursuit that takes him across the world to France and then to the Castle of Heavenly Bliss in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Mystery and thrill go together as Geoff searches for the girl he has grown to love. He discovers Gerda Vrouwendijk's deadly purpose and fears he may be too late. SIXTIES SERIES The SIXTIES SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (1960-1975) and the Second Vatican Council are the social, cultural, and political background. The author who lived through the turmoil of those times recreates its atmosphere. The themes of neo-paganism and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. Book 1 TIMES OF DISTRESS Book 2 IN THIS VALE OF TEARS Book 3 COUNTERCULTURE DREAMS Book 4 THE DREAM BECOMES A NIGHTMARE due Sept 2024 Book 5 THE CASTLE OF HEAVENLY BLISS Book 6 A SENSE OF LOSS due 2025 Book 7 WHERE TO NOW? due 2026 Book 8 A LONG WAY BACK due 2027