In this sequel to Portals in a Northern Sky, author Charles D. Hayes delivers another engrossing adventure set in the Alaska wilderness and populated with a colorful cast. A Mile North of Good and Evil invites readers to imagine the potential of visual time travel and to contemplate ideas ranging from the inner thoughts of psychopaths to the possibility of total human extinction.
It’s 2028, seven years after introduction of the Portals System, and the world is on the brink of all-out war. Now known as Adam 21, the Portals technology offers the ability to look back in time and view any event in history from any angle. As a result, new animosities have been unleashed worldwide, based on old ethnic wounds and past aggressions. A Mile North of Good and Evil opens as the turmoil becomes explosive. Bold, creative action is called for.
Convening in Alaska, a group of strategists consider innovative and unprecedented ways to calm global tensions. At the same time, a brazen serial killer with ambitions of unequaled notoriety works his way north, and a retired detective gathers clues on the killer’s trail with the help of his gifted niece. Operating from America’s heartland, an influential religious leader objects to the power of Adam 21 and seeks to subvert it. In a world mad with contempt and hatred, domestic dogs tangle with wolves, and vengeance consumes the minds of those who feel wronged. As these players and their stories converge at a remote location in Alaska, the entire world reacts to living in the shadow of doomsday.
A Mile North of Good and Evil contrasts the brutality of man-to-man combat, wolf attacks, and merciless homicides against thoughtful examination of the existential questions facing the story’s characters. Pondering their own mortality while exploring the nature of good and evil, they come to the profound realization that time is the greatest serial killer in the cosmos and that human life has meaning only so long as it is remembered.
