C P Schweikhardt

Reprisal C P Schweikhardt

PEPRISAL, is a love story set in today's world between two highly successful Texans living in Houston who meet through a business deal involving shipping materials to Iraq for construction of a refinery and chemical complex. Jason Swift, a thirty-six year old Texas A& M Petroleum Engineer with a masters degree in Business Management, is a self-made multi-millionaire. His company restructures large companies making them more profitable and efficient. Jason is renown in the American business world as a problem solver. Stella James owns and manages an international freight forwarding company (Forwardex) located in Houston. She is a thirty-three year old Business Management graduate from the University of Texas who started her business after working for a local freight forwarding company. Her father, a rich rancher-businessman, financed Stella's startup company which became profitable from the onset and continued to expand. A year after their first encounter and a torrid love affair Jason and Stella travel to the family ranch to introduce Jason to her family and to announce their intention to marry in the near future. While at the ranch Jason meets Stella's younger sister Alice who is a senior at the University of Texas. Not long after Alice is found dead on a side street near Rita's Place in Victoria. Her throat had been slashed. The local authorities make little headway in solving Alice's murder prompting Jason to take time off from his business to catch the murderer. He works with the Victoria Chief of Police in his investigation. Later Jason meets Luke Pearson who he considered to be a prime suspect, but who was actually Alice's husband to be before she was killed. Luke quits his job as a construction engineer to join Jason in his search for Alice's killer. The Chief insisted Alice's murder was a professional job, causing Jason conclude her death was somehow related to Stella's or her father's business dealings which leads him to Pakistan, Iraq and Syria then back to the United States in search of her killer.