James Y. Bartlett

Life in Little Penwick, Rhode Island, is finally feeling manageable for Police Chief Gus Haddock—until he's nearly run down while out for an early-morning jog, and days later someone blasts out the glass doors of his police station.

It’s 1924 and John Edward Haddock, a young man with a fine reputation as a merchant marine at home on the sea, is offered an opportunity to make a cool thousand dollars…one half of his annual salary.

Gus Haddock never expected to take over as chief of police in tiny Little Penwick, Rhode Island—the smallest town in the smallest state—while his father Julius sat in jail, framed by the corrupt state Attorney General.

Finally out of jail after tangling with a corrupt state Attorney General, Julius Haddock—the retired police chief of tiny Little Penwick, Rhode Island—is drifting through his days with a brand-new private investigator's license burning a hole in his pocket.

An ancient song composed by King David’s chief musician Asaph, discovered by the Teutonic Crusaders to the Holy Land, returned to Germany, then divided into four fragments and hidden to prevent the fearsome powers of God unleashed if the Song is ever played …

In 1736 Leipzig, Cantor Johann Sebastian Bach is feeling oppressed—the city council ignores him, his students are unruly and unappreciative, and the head of the St. Thomas School wants to eliminate the musical curriculum entirely.