The Plan

Starting in New York City, The Plan quickly moves to the Mississippi Delta and winds up in Ecuador. Based on a true story of two murdered civil rights lawyers, Susan Klopfer's intriguing work weaves factual history through alternative or paranormal fiction themes. The tight bond between Clinton and Joe, two gay, black lawyers is broken when Joe (openly married to a knockout blond woman) is reportedly found hanged. Moore believes Joe Means was tortured and murdered (not a suicide, as Joe's cagey wife insists), and that his and Joe's shared obsession-investigating the cover-ups of various murders and assassinations of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and President John Kennedy-is the reason for Joe's death. Clinton also believes he is next on a hit list, and that solving Joe's murder is his only chance of survival. When he discovers Joe's wife, Tara, was spirited away as an expat to South America, he sends his trusted Spanish-speaking legal assistant, Mollie Johnson, to Ecuador for the adventure of her life. But Clinton Moore is killed before Mollie even leaves the airport. Mollie responds to join forces with former Dallas journalist Sara Mercury, and together they take readers into the high Andes to bring home Joe's widow who they believe is in serious danger. Filled with more than enough civil rights and alternative history to titillate the most sophisticated conspiracy theorist, Klopfer's first foray into paranormal and alternative fiction is thought-provoking fodder and a fun read Ties to the KKK, paramilitary groups (Militia), Neo Nazis, Chile's Colonia Dignidad (Paul Schaeffer and Augusto Pinochet), the NSA, FBI, CIA and the assassinations of two famous civil rights leaders and President John F. Kennedy, keep the fast pace of this historical fiction, paranormal thriller that is first of the Civil Rights Mystery Sleuth crime adventure series. The Plan opens in the quiet halls of New York University as a friend of Clinton Moore's, a distinguished history professor and former lawyer, reads news of an upcoming criminal trial in Chile. One of his university colleagues, Professor Boris Weisfeiler, a Russian Jew immigrant and internationally known math professor from Penn State University, mysteriously disappeared years earlier (and ended up murdered in a South American CIA supported torture camp, Colonia Dignidad). Dr. Dan Bell quickly decides to travel to Santiago to aid his friend's sister, Dr. Olga Weisfeiler, who will be testifying on who she believes kidnapped and killed her brother. Klopfer first takes the story to the Mississippi Delta, as Moore tries to learn why he and his friend, Joe, have been murdered. Readers are transported to Cuenca, Ecuador as a talented paralegal tries to save the wife of her (now murdered) boss's dead best friend Meanwhile, a compromised but passionate journalist who was unfairly fired from The Dallas Morning News, Sara Mercury, tries to help solve the mystery of Moore's death, but with interference (good and bad) from an Embassy attach , along with help from a flirtatious and very Latino chef, Don Col n. An elderly CIA asset with ties to the Kennedy and King assassinations intervenes; he has kept close ties to Colonia Dignidad (Jules Rocco Kimble) and makes his presence known via threats to Tara and others. The Plan moves to South America-where today's retired American expats enjoy the unique city of Cuenca. Mollie, Sara and Tara soon learn how to move about this colonial metropolis of a half million residents, helping readers see its beauty through their own eyes. As Mollie enters this city of four rivers, the reader discovers one of Cuenca's unique qualities: moments before arriving into Cuenca, people of all ages start appearing along the river's plush green ways. Behind the van's tinted windows, Mollie spots hikers, youngsters playing soccer, others using exercise equipment, or walking their dogs as she bonds with the smell of eucalyptus