Recent studies and articles from across the globe, issue stern warnings of mass extinctions of large ocean fish species including Tuna, Sturgeon, Salmon, Cod, and others. Respected International scientific studies have calculated the year 2048 for critical food shortages. New York Times environmental writer Cornelia Dean writes, “If fishing around the world continues at its present pace, more and more species will vanish, marine ecosystems will unravel and there will be “global collapse” of all species currently fished, possibly as soon as mid-century, fisheries experts and ecologists are predicting.” 

Global Collapse of fish species by 2050, is the underlying theme of

Life Line Twenty Fifty, a recently published science fiction book written by Richard Thomas Rupe of Youngstown, Ohio.  The future mystery is set in a community learning campus in Erie Pennsylvania's Lake Erie and the environs of the Presque Isle peninsula. The time frame, 2050, coincides with the international scientific community’s prediction, as seen in Science magazine, Guardian Unlimited (an endangered species watch organization, Associated Press partners such as the Youngstown Vindicator and quoted in the N.Y. Times.(see above)

Life Line Twenty Fifty’s antagonist the Seafood Cartel of the Americas, is a ruthless international fishing cartel, that uses sonar to stun and herd thousands of fish into drift nets in the South Pacific. The cartel enjoys an unregulated international monopoly, fixing prices, and forcing member seafood outlets to sell what they mandate. 

The protagonist, Erie community school newspaper’s crack reporter Janna North, faces intimidation and intrigue as she investigates and interviews suspects in the disappearance of two respected scientists from the future Erie community with ties to the cartel.

The author, a thirty-year Science/ Technology teacher, uses graphic technically-literate and compute-savvy descriptions along with articulate structural details making his first fictional mystery a potpourri of social and environmental issues and engaging adventures in high-tech, computer/internet/blogging, dolphin communication research, endangered ocean species, biospheres, ultraviolet radiation domes, hydro-geothermal energy alternatives, and more.

Life Line Twenty Fifty, is available on-line through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, or go to the publisher directly “PublishAmerica”.  Copies are also available at “The Erie Book Store” Lovell Place, 137 E. 13^th St. Erie, Pa., and the Public Library of Youngtown, Ohio.