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Description

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Washed-up golfer Matt Thurman dreams of returning to the PGA circuit. Instead, he finds himself framed for murder. Espy Harper, a Department of Justice attorney, wants to solve a mystery involving fixed golf tournaments. Instead, she uncovers a draconian plot with world-changing consequences. Together they race to find answers before it’s too late—for them and for the country. Their quest leads them deep into America’s past, to a brotherhood of direct descendents of the Continental Army. Cincinnatus weaves a riveting dramatic tale full of intrigue, murder, and lost love that will leave readers breathless.

About the Author

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Rusty McClure, is the New York Times bestselling author of Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed The Nation. He has a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University and a Harvard MBA. He teaches an entrepreneurial course at his undergraduate alma mater Ohio Wesleyan University. David Stern, author of over two dozen titles including the New York Times bestselling novelization Blair Witch Project: A Dossier and Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed the Nation. He has worked on a wide range of titles during his twenty-year career in the publishing industry. He has edited numerous national bestsellers and worked with many award-winning authors. He lives with his wife and children in Massachusetts.

Praise for Cincinnatus: The Secret Plot to Save America…

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Mariemont native Rusty McClure points to the blue-and-white striped flag with an

eagle blowing in the wind on the Fountain Square flagpole.

 

"Nobody knows it's there. They never taught us about it," says McClure, a 1968

Mariemont High School graduate.

 

Anyone who reads McClure's new book will know a lot more about the flag of the

Washington-based Society of the Cincinnati, founded in 1783 by Continental Army

veterans. McClure's "National Treasure"-like novel, "Cincinnatus: The Secret Plot

to Save America" (Ternary Publishing; $24) is out now.

 

McClure is also the author of the 2006 "Crosley," a book about his grandfather and

great-uncle, Lewis and Powel Crosley Jr. He set much of his new thriller here.

 

In the book, assistant U.S. district attorney Esperanza Harper traces millions won

on fixed golf tournaments to the little-known Society of Cincinnati, the nation's

oldest patriotic organization.

 

With help from her father, an anti-terrorism expert in the Los Angeles FBI office,

she uncovers a right-wing conspiracy of international consequences that takes she

and her father to South Florida and the private Bahamas island of Cat Cay.

 

And all over Cincinnati. Fountain Square, One Lytle Place, Union Terminal, Camp

Washington Chili, Montgomery Inn Boathouse and the Sawyer Point statue of

Roman general Cincinnatus also figure into the story.

 

So do the Crosley brothers, the radio makers and WLW-AM owners, whose love of

electronics plays a plausible role in the fiction. Powel Crosley Jr. also built the Twin

Beaches mansion on Cat Cay, which figures in the book.

 

"I tell people about the Society of Cincinnati and Cat Cay. It's really cool stuff that

nobody in Washington or Cincinnati knows about. And I didn't make them up," says

McClure, who has a Harvard MBA and a divinity degree from Emory University.

 

For most of his adult life, McClure has lived in the Columbus suburb of Dublin. He's

an investor in a dozen companies and teaches an entrepreneurial course at Ohio

Wesleyan University.

 

McClure also has been a PGA scoring observer for the Memorial Golf Tournament

at Dublin's Muirfield Village Golf Club for 20 years. That experience inspired the

book's subplot about fixing golf rounds.

 

"I've been thinking of this plot for 20 years," says McClure, an avid reader of Tom

Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming and John Grisham mysteries.

 

But first, as one of the few surviving Crosley descendants, he wrote "Crosley: Two

Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation" with David Stern

("Blair Witch Project: A Dossier") and Oxford author Michael A. Banks.

 

When "Crosley" hit the New York Times best-seller list, he told Stern about his idea

for a novel. It took them 18 months to assemble the 500-page story.

 

As with "Crosley," McClure will promote the book on billboards around town. One

will say, "Call Harper" with a phone number from the novel. Those who dial the

number will hear main character "Espy" Harper give clues on how someone could

win $5,000.

 

Another will promote "Cincinnatus" as a Christmas gift by showing Santa Claus

reading it.

 

Stern, who has written a dozen "Star Trek," "Blair Witch" and "Tomb Raider"

novels, already has envisioned how "Cincinnatus" could be converted into a

screenplay, McClure says.

 

"The first book I did as part of my stewardship. Now I'm doing this for fun and

profit," he says.

 

John Kiesewetter, Kentucky Enquirer, November 1, 2009