Part of Series
It's 2057 and Zachary Nixon Johnson is the last freelance private investigator on planet Earth. Lucky for him, he's mind-melded with HARV, the most advanced cognitive processor on Earth-so Zach generally does pretty well when it comes to cracking cases. And when a certain lady loses her dog, she naturally turns to the last PI on Earth for help. See, the lady in question is Merinda-1616, a member of the High Council of Mars, visiting Earth for important trade negotiations. And until her pooch, Saturn, is safely by her side, Merinda-1616 won't participate in the talks. Tall, with dark hair, creamy white skin, and steady, piercing green eyes, Merinda-1616 cuts quite the striking figure for a bionic clone. Zach learns quickly that it's not just the fate of Saturn at stake: someone wants Merinda-1616 dead. With plenty of bionic suspects with ample motives and opportunities to harm the councilwoman, Zach and HARV certainly have their work cut out for them. A hilarious and high-spirited intergalactic romp, "The Raven Haired Rogue" will delight anyone who has ever wished there were more pulp humor sci-fi mystery adventures novels on bookstore shelves today.
Author
From the Author's Website John Zakour is a humor/sf/fantasy writer with a Master's degree in Human Behavior and slowly plugging away at his Ph.D. He has written zillions (well, thousands) of gags for syndicated comics and comedians (including: Rugrats, Grimmy, Bound and Gagged, Dennis the Menace and Joan River's old TV show.) John also writes his own syndicated comic, Working Daze for United Media. John has been the regular cartoonist for Geek.com and has sold cartoons or gags to hundreds of journals and magazines. John is also a contributor to Nickelodeon magazine writing Fairly Odd Parents and Jimmy Neutron comic books. Recently he has started writing Simpsons comics for Bongo. John’s first humorous SF mystery book, The Plutonium Blonde (DAW 2001, co-written with Larry Ganem and started of as an interactive web story for the Sci Fi channel) was named one of the top 30 SF books of 2001 by The Chronicle of Science Fiction who called it, “the funniest SF book of 2001”. His second novel, The Doomsday Brunette (DAW Feb 2004) has made the Locus best sellers list. The third book in the series, The RadioActive Redhead, also made the SF best seller list. Besides his novels John has sold numerous short stories to anthologies and magazines. John has written the dialog and song lyrics for Frogwares Software computer game Around the World in 80 days. For something a bit different John writes skits for the Harlem Rockets basketball team. In the past, John has written and helped develop the first year and season of the comic book and animated series: Caramel Crew, for Mobtoons. John also has written for the independent SF TV show, “Realm of the Mind”. John also helped develop an animated sf horror series, called Prime Squad for MUV Technologies in India. His romantic comedy, Skin Deep about an ordinary guy who can’t believe the hottest girl on campus is actually in love with him has won a couple of writing awards. John has also written for Ebru tv. John use to be a database programmer / web guru / science writer for NYSAES. When he's not writing or studying John likes to play softball, watch TV and hang out with his wife and son. He use to do judo and karate, but those have been replaced by tai chi and archery.
