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Chapter 12 – Criminal
Criminal chapter icon
Sam walked into the office in Chicago Police Headquarters. “Superintendent Howell?”
“Yes. Please call me Gary, Sam.” A big smile creased his brown face below his glasses and bald head.
“Sure, Gary.”
“I’ve prepared a briefing for you. Here are the videos in time order.” Superintendent Howell pushed a button on his computer, and a wall-sized screen lit up, playing a black-and-white security video. A man wearing a ski mask punched a car window, opened the door, and took out a computer bag and a cell phone.
“That was the first crime. Here’s the next.” The same man knocked out a store’s plate-glass window and grabbed a television.
Sam watched all twelve videos with Gary Howell. They all happened late at night, all the break-ins done by the man’s fist. In the last video, taken from a policeman’s body camera, the man was shot, and he stumbled but kept running and vaulted over a six-foot barbed-wire fence, clearing it with a foot to spare.
“Whoa! I can see why zombiism is suspect number one.”
“Yes. We never found the bullets that were shot, and our video analysis show the man was hit in the leg and the back.”
“And then did the Olympic high-jump stunt.”
“Yes. We also analyzed his speed before the jump. Thirty miles per hour.”
“So an Olympic sprinter as well as a jumper. Have you interviewed any decathletes in Chicago?”
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Four disabled seventh-graders with superpowers take a vacation at Coaster World. They need a break from fighting criminals. Ever since the beginning of the school year when they acquired their unusual abilities, they’ve been training and using those powers to fight crime in their town.
Little do they know the arch-villain they recently defeated also loves coasters and is vacationing at Coaster World. Worse, the villain wants revenge. Nothing less than turning these teens to a life of crime will satisfy.
Can Jeremy, Dan, Kayla, and Aubrey withstand the villain’s attacks? Or will they become Super Villains?
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2024
Very entertaining and well written story. Has everything a great book needs. Heroes, villains, and a really great storyline. Absolutely love this series!
Here you go,The Secret Supers. Get yours before the sale ends on July 21st.
Secret Supers audiobook
Jeremy Gentle fell flat on his face at therapy. That was normal since he had cerebral palsy. But his new superpower wasn’t normal. Then things got weirder when his best friend, Dan Elanga, got a different superpower. But Dan was still blind.
Kayla Verdera and Aubrey Wilcosky, two girls in their middle-school special ed class, discovered they too had new superpowers. Kayla was mute and needed a walker. Aubrey lost two legs and used crutches. But they were as powerful as the boys.
What should the four friends do? Jeremy knew if the word got out, it’d be a media circus. Then they started fighting crime, as the Secret Supers. Who knew a disability could be a perfect disguise? No one would ever think of disabled kids as superheroes. Then they ran into problems they never expected.
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My Devotional Book–Where Did THAT Come From? You’ve known me as Andy Zach, a comic scifi and fantasy author. Where did this Bible devotional come from? Written by Jeffry Smith? Who’s he?
It came from thirty plus years ago. ‘Jeffry Smith’ is my nom de plume for non-fiction.
The book began as a Bible study on the book of Revelation. I was tired of reading all the interpretations and arguments over what it meant. I was just focused on on thing: what did it say?
Going through the book verse by verse, writing every statement down, I got what the book was actually saying.
The first two verses took me like a half an hour or more.
Why?
Look at the verses:
This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John, 2 who testified to God’s word and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.
I broke these verses up into these statements:
This (entire book) is the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Which God gave Him. (Jesus got the book from God the Father).
To show to His servants (Christians are the servants of Jesus Christ.)
The things which must happen soon. (Future events, from the point of view of John, the writer.)
Which He sent and made known by His angel. (Jesus used His angel or messenger to send this message.)
To His servant, John. (John is called Jesus’s servant. He received this book.)
Who testified to God’s word and of the testimony of Jesus Christ. (This is what John wrote)
About everything that he saw. (This testimony is about his visions from God.)
Whew!
TLDR Version – My Devotional Book
This kind of analysis is too complicated for most people. So I made it simpler. Here are the first two verses in the devotional:
January 1 – Revelation 1:1-2
This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John, 2 who testified to God’s word and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.
What is the origin of the book of Revelation?
How did John get the book of Revelation? Through which Persons did the Revelation pass?
What is the purpose of the Revelation?
Who is the intended audience of Revelation?
What is in the Book of Revelation?
Prayer: Thank You, Almighty God, for giving us the book of Revelation, directly from You through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank You for using Your created angels and sons of men to spread Your truth through all the world. Amen.
God gives us the name of the book: the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He gives us the topic, things which must happen soon, and shows the provenance of the book as the knowledge flows from His throne through Jesus, to His angel, to John, and then to the whole church.
My Devotional Book – What You Need to Know
The four icons of the four gospels. Also in Revelation 4.
What is this site? It’s my Square site. What’s that? It’s my OFFICIAL SALES website. I sell you my autographed books at LESS than Amazon AND include free shipping.
How can I do that? I cut out Amazon.
Amazon takes a 30% commission on each sale. It then deducts the printing cost of each book. That leaves me with 30% of your money.
But Square takes a 1% commission. I get most of your money even though you are paying less. That lets me:
Pay for shipping for you
And then pay for taxes for you
Finally I pay for printing the book for you
My Devotional Book – Part 2
So how did this study go from a personal Bible study to a published devotional?
The Revelation Devotional back cover
After I completed the study, it lay in its handwritten version for years. Then I typed it up on my computer, where it resided for more years. Then I decided to make it into a class about Revelation.
I decided I would skip any interpretation and just teach what the book said. That became an eight week class of hour and a half sessions, going through all twenty two chapters.
Teaching the class at my church and then at Bradley University helped me refine it.
My students demanded another book of Revelation class covering the interpretation of its symbols.
So I created a class covering all the symbols in the book, showing how they were used elsewhere in the Bible
Get My Latest Book Autographed – The Story Behind the Book Part 3
The Gospel Medley cover. Click to get
By this time I was pretty familiar with the book of Revelation, forty years after I started studying it. How’d it become a book?
