The Golden Web

About the Book

The year is 2050 and Jerry Toy, grandson of one of the richest men in China, lives in a swooning simplex in New York, enjoying the fairest flowers of the land. He is 28, tall, handsome, and wears a long thick braid. People fish along green banks and the city that never sleeps lives to its promise. Everyone has taken a digital name and Asians predominate as everywhere. Jerry, a perennial student of human nature, hires a researcher, Polly Androus, a truly gorgeous redhead who he falls in love with, to delve some social material he accidentally discovered, stories written by a would-be writer during the late 60’s into the ‘90’s. At night, Jerry has a series of recurring dreams where he is Ming Toy, living back in Marco Polo’s time. Being a favorite in the royal court of the great Kubilai Khan, he shares the adventures of the young stripling who is always seeking women, as Marco says ‘the reason for his travels’. Polly has an incorrigible roommate, pretty Copula, who is pursued by Adam Marsh, a rugged looking lawyer who has left the law. A black servant, Lincoln Jesus Jones, runs Jerry’s household, a step up his ladder. Because of horrific civil disturbances in the year 2030, an apartheid law has been enacted across the North with the full approval by most blacks; nevertheless, its very existence is a perpetual source of anger to Linc. Jerry throws a dazzling book party on his birthday and we are treated to a long look at 2050 in New York. As it ends, Happy Flower, a TV producer, is found murdered. Previously she tried to enlist Jerry in a scheme to market some old films showing well-known stars performing x-rated stuff before they became famous. The grandfather is a suspect. Whereupon a handsome international cop-friend of Jerry’s, called Neil Roscoe, appears, hangs around, solves the murder, and becomes enamored with Polly. Sometime later, the billionaire grandfather invites everyone to Hong Kong, where he lives in baronial splendor, owning, among other things, the most lavish gambling casino. He manages to arrange for all to visit his country estate in Fukien, China, where Jerry finds present day and Marco Polo converge, all this, as Polly gets captured and is rescued by Neil from the clutches of Foo Man Choo, the head of a triad, who wants the old films the grandfather has tucked away. Neil becomes Polly’s hero as they all return to New York. Meanwhile, the probing research on the human character centers on one of the would-be writer’s stories, a morality tale called ‘The Dig’, a full-blown adventure filled with pure historical background, featuring a dynamite 17 year old boy, his smashing older sister, who definitely resembles Polly, and a burned-out cop, the very image of Neil, all enmeshed down in Guatemala where they discover a hidden valley, exactly as it was five hundred years ago, with real live breathing Aztecs. A full court is there; the venerable wiseman, a handsome warrior, a nobleman’s beautiful 16 year old daughter, a really sinister high priest, along with a knowing king and a flirting queen; a rollicking tale of war and jealousy, mounds of treasure, wily smugglers, and a rival archeology professor, all showing primitive instincts set against the glorious colors of the jungle. Certainly enough nature for delving. As the romantic, sexy yarn unfolds, constant breaks are taken from the narrative to follow Jerry, Polly and Neil as they continue vying for each other’s affections. The odyssey of ‘The Dig’ ends in a high-pitched finale with the trio using the essence of the work to examine their own lives, each wondering what tomorrow will bring. Roy Comart January, 2001

About the Author

This is the first published work of the author.