Dear Reader:
My son, Kel,
who lives in South Florida, returned
from a business trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica, talking
about the legend of the WHITE WITCH. His story interested me enough that a few
months later we both went to Jamaica to learn
more about Annie Palmer, the White Witch, and, also, about the Maroons.
Kel had not stumbled across the Maroon story while he was there, but I did a
little research about the area and learned about them. That trip let me to
combine the Maroons with the White Witch to create what is certainly my best
thriller to date (bear in mind that I’ll probably say the same thing about my
next thriller; such is the nature of a novelist.).
We stayed at
the Ritz, which was built on what was once part of the Rose Hall Plantation. We
golfed at the hotel course, aptly named “The White Witch.” We toured the Rose
Hall Great House where Annie Palmer lived two hundred years before and where
she tortured and murdered three husbands and many more slave lovers. We learned
that even today the staff in the mansion insists on leaving before dark every
evening; for they fear that the White Witch may be out roaming the grounds of her
old plantation. However, let me hasten to add that Annie Palmer is only a
supporting character in this drama. After all, she died two hundred years ago.
Still her legend is strong enough that in my story when a series of murders
occur in the Montego Bay area, some
with snake knives said to have belonged to the White Witch, it’s only a small
leap for the locals to believe, true or not, that the White Witch must be
responsible.
The real
story and the conflict that created it is up in the mountains above Montego Bay, a small
village called Accompong, the ancestral home of the Maroons (short for Cimarron, or “wild
and untamed.). The original Maroons started escaping from their Spanish captors
in the early fifteen hundreds, following game trails up into the mountains
where they formed villages and lived off the land. When the Spaniards tried to
re-capture them, they fought back and soon were going down from the mountains
in the dead of night to attack the Spaniards as they slept. They fought for
about a hundred years before the British drove the Spaniards to Cuba. The British
could not understand how a band of ex-slaves could so consistently beat back
the Spaniards until they tried to capture the Maroons. After another hundred or
so years, they asked for a cease fire and signed a treaty with Cudjoe, the
leader of the Maroons, giving them dominion over the rainforest up in the
mountains, provided they would allow the British to raise sugar cane and
bananas along the coast. That treaty exists to this day. Only, an American
corporation was threatening to mine bauxite in the Maroons’ rainforest
when Kel and I were there. To get to the bottom of the conflict, we drove up a
pothole filled road to Accompong and asked for an audience with the Colonel of
the Maroons. Surprisingly, he talked to us. Only later did we learn that they
did not like strangers in their village, particularly white men. Still, what we
didn’t know didn’t hurt us. But it did give me the idea for the story which is
really about the Maroons willingness to fight once again for their rain forest.
Of course, the White Witch does make cameo appearances throughout the tale, but
usually only in the imagination of some other character.
It was
fascinating research that led to a very good thriller. And if you want to see
the Maroon/British treaty that Cudjoe signed (with his X because he could
neither read nor write), just go on line. The treaty is still there and is
validity is still being debated by scholars.
Sincerely,
Larry D.
Thompson
About the Author
After
graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, Larry spent the first
half of his professional life as a trial lawyer. He tried well over 300 cases
and won more than 95% of them. Although he had not taken a writing class since
freshman English (back when they wrote on stone tablets), he figured that he
had read enough novels and knew enough about trials, lawyers, judges, and
courtrooms that he could do it. Besides, his late, older brother, Thomas
Thompson, was one of the best true crime writers to ever set a pen to paper;
so, just maybe, there was something in the T[LDT1] hompson gene pool that would be guide him into this new
career. He started writing his first
novel about a dozen years ago and published it a couple of years thereafter. He
has now written five highly acclaimed legal thrillers. White Witch is number six with many more to come.
Larry
is married to his wife, Vicki. He has three children scattered from Colorado to Austin to Boca Raton, and four grandchildren. He has been
trying to retire from the law practice to devote full time to writing.
Hopefully, that will occur by the end of 2018. He still lives in Houston, but spends his summers in Vail CO, high on a mountain where he is
inspired by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
His
latest book is the captivating thriller, WHITE
WITCH.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
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About the Book:
Title: WHITE WITCH
Author: Larry D. Thompson
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 291
Genre: Thriller
Author: Larry D. Thompson
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 291
Genre: Thriller
BOOK BLURB:
Jamaica is a place
where the surreal is simply everyday reality. When a ruthless American aluminum
company plans to strip mine the Jamaican rainforest, they send former Navy SEAL
Will Taylor to Montego Bay to deal with
local resistance on their behalf. But he’s unaware that the British had signed
a treaty deeding the rainforest to the Jamaican Maroons, descendants of escaped
slaves, over 300 years ago. The Maroons fought and died for their land then,
and are more than willing to do so now, whether it’s the British or the
Americans who threaten them this time around.
Upon Will’s
arrival, a series of inexplicable murders begin, some carried out with deadly
snake daggers that were owned and used by Annie Palmer, a voodoo priestess
better known as the White Witch. She was killed 200 years prior, but is said to
still haunt the island at night, and the local Jamaicans are certain she’s
responsible for the gruesome murders, her form of retaliation against the new
turmoil taking place in the rainforest.
And Will has
been forced directly into the middle of it. After a few close calls, he’s
finally convinced to leave his company and join forces with the Maroons, headed
by Vertise Broderick, a Maroon who resigned from her position at the New
York Times to return to Jamaica to stop the
mining. Together they hire a Jamaican attorney to prove that the Maroon/British
treaty is still valid to stop the mining, and they take it upon themselves to
solve the White Witch murders, because the legend of the White Witch can’t
possibly be true…
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