Anthropology through Fiction

Two athletic honeymooners vacationing in the woods near Big Sur, on the California coast, just want to take a breather from each other's firefighting, smoke-jumping, rappelling out of helicopters, and forensic DNA analysis career duties. They find themselves accidentally hiking into a rural nudist camp only to be surprised that they actually were set up to arrive there by the groom's employer, requiring another globetrotting job offer of the couple that they can't refuse -- from government agents, even when they work in different occupations. This contemporary romance novel with a touch of intrigue and suspense is a work of fiction. Curiosity skilled the cat, and action coaxed it back. Resilience filled the cat, when self-confidence sniffed a rat. While Doros - Δωρός Argos mugged a twisted smile, he day-dreamed of the fierce maroon eyes of his old Greek islands flame, known as "The Cat," a strong-willed mountain biker from Chios with a feline-like expression. Aphi, short for Aphroditi - Αφροδίτη Adis, appeared to Doros. He knew her as 'the Cat'. And she knew Doros as 'the Dog.' The 'Cat' appeared to Doros in a dream, bikinied, in a haystack with a wisp of broom straw dangling from her blood-red lips. In reality, no one heard Aphi Adis scream. At three in a dog-day, August morning, the 'Cat' (Aphi) clawed the dry earth in California, where the FBI's most-wanted file number sixteen had buried her in the six by seven foot grave, not in her native Chios, but in a rural part of California, near Big Sur, where she was supposed to have a slightly belated honeymoon with her new husband, Doron. She couldn't have been closer to home in the most isolated wooded area near California's Sykes clothing- optional campgrounds, but he wished they were honeymooning back in Chios, the Greek island, as they had planned a week after their recent wedding. Work details kept both of them in California.The last thing Aphi remembered was a large, gloved hand over her mouth and scratchy thorns. Then she awoke, and pounced on her own throbbing headache in pitch blackness, and within seconds began to claw, to kick, to bite at the ceiling of her brittle, ceramic coffin.Wolf E. Schitte, a cartoonist turned arsonist, had stripped the FBI's wired microphone, recorder, and honing device from her waist, burned her tee shirt and jeans, and tossed her kicking into the yawning construction ravine wearing nothing but a string and a whistle.