Thieves of the Black Sea. Joe O'Neill
the Middle East. I’ve always enjoyed this series because of the characters and setting…the third book is my favorite so far.”
The RED HAND ADVENTURES
BOOK IV
Thieves of the Black Sea
JOE O’NEILL
This novel features some events that are historically accurate. However, all characters are fictional and any similarity between characters within the book and actual characters is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
A portion of proceeds from the sale of all Red Hand Adventures books will be donated to help the many impoverished and enslaved children in the world.
Thieves of the Black Sea
COPYRIGHT © 2016 BY JOE O’NEILL
Art Direction by Kristin Myrdahl
Graphic Design by Anna Fonnier
Composition by Margaret Copeland/terragrafix.com
Cover illustrated by Lamont Russ
Maps designed by Josh Espinosa
Interior Illustrations by Lamont Russ
Edited by Sara Addicott
Copyedited by Bedelia Walton
ISBN 978-0-9905469-9-3
SPECIAL THANKS
Last year I had the privilege to visit the Remann Hall Book Club in Tacoma, Washington. This is a program for incarcerated youth to encourage them to read. In spite of initial skepticism by some, the program has been a resounding success with over five hundred participants! As I sat in a bland, soulless room, I was moved to tears when the young men and women were brought into the room in small groups of four, five, or six and watched closely by a prison guard. Wearing innocuous orange jumpsuits, they sat on the floor and waited for me to speak. What I saw were not hardened felons, but young people that should be worrying about prom, learning to drive, making a sports team, or studying for a test. Instead, some of them would be sent to an adult penitentiary for life, their young lives over before they ever had a chance to begin. I was amazed by their intelligent questions and, most of all, by their sense of humor in spite of being locked up and leading amazingly tragic and difficult lives.
This book is dedicated to the youths of Remann Hall and the founders of the book club—Margaret and Craig Ross—who are not state or federal employees, just concerned citizens who wanted to help some kids who sorely needed a little bit of encouragement.
—Joe O’Neill
“I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.”
— W.H. Auden
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 2 The Call of the Hunter
CHAPTER 5 Mandolins in the Moonlight
CHAPTER 6 A Ripple in the Desert
CHAPTER 7 The Trail Is Not Dead
CHAPTER 8 The Tutelage of Foster Crowe
CHAPTER 10 The Beinhoff-Muller Gang!
CHAPTER 12 The Hunter or the Hunted?
CHAPTER 14 To The Black Forest
CHAPTER 15 The Den of Abdullah Ozek
CHAPTER 16 Catacombs of the Red Hand
CHAPTER 19 Tour de Constantinople
CHAPTER 20 Lessons of a Different Color
CHAPTER 21 Bruised, but not Broken
CHAPTER 23 Reinhold and the Black Forest
CHAPTER 24 To Sleep with the Fishes
CHAPTER 25 A Bucking and Kicking Iron Horse
CHAPTER 26 The End is just the Beginning