Third in the Jack Richmond Conspiracy Series, this book is based on a true story, that of a young woman held against her will in a Raleigh mental hospital. While investigating her story, Jack returns home on Halloween to find that his fiance, Teri, has been abducted. Finding her becomes his first objective, but along the way he has to deal with new assassins, old friends gone bad and members of the organization that is really running things.
Between Halloween and the mid-term elections, Jack Richmond dodges bullets, house fires and the Trilateral Commission as he uncovers the conspiracy hiding in plain sight.
In the story of a lifetime, an actual witness, one who had been held captive in a mental institution against her will (based on a true story). Jack Richmond and his friends investigate the story as factions of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations work against him. Just when he thought he had it all under control, Teri is missing, whereabouts unknown. The police found her car and wallet, but not Teri. Between Halloween and the election two days later, Jack has to find Teri, get the girl to agree to a television interview and take his old newsletter back.
Third in the Jack Richmond Conspiracy Series, this book is based on a true story, that of a young woman held against her will in a Raleigh mental hospital. While investigating her story, Jack returns home on Halloween to find that his fiance, Teri, has been abducted. Finding her becomes his first objective, but along the way he has to deal with new assassins, old friends gone bad and members of the organization that is really running things.
Excerpt
Doctor Nikolin
“You can't hold me here!” yelled patient number 516. She was clearly under some stress and looked as if she had slept badly. Her hair was in wild disarray, save for one side, which was pressed in. She wore no makeup and was dressed in one of the standard issue, gray nightgowns the hospital commonly issued to patients when their clothes were taken.
Doctor Alexander Nikolin looked at the woman. He evaluated that she had the capacity to look attractive, under different circumstances. He couldn't tell if the contortions in her face were from the medication he was trying out on her, a facial tick from her illness or the migraine headaches she complained of. She had been on several medications, including one for migraines, but if they were working, he reasoned, she wouldn't be sitting in front of him now.
“I can hold you for observation for 72 hours from the moment you sign this paper admitting yourself voluntarily to my care. If you do not, I can hold you indefinitely involuntarily on the suspicion that you may be suicidal or even criminally insane. It's your choice, of course.”
Doctor Nikolin pressed his lips together, raising one eyebrow. The woman had been under the care of the hospital since Friday, over the weekend. She had not seen a doctor in that time. She had been admitted after complaining of a possible overdose, fearing that she had taken too much of her anxiety medication.
“But I have my own doctor, a therapist. I have been seeing him for some time. Can't we call him. He'll vouch for me. I should be under his care, not here.”
“All I can do is to admit you voluntarily and keep you under observation. You are on suicide watch and there are steps. We can't let the patient dictate the treatment, now can we?”
Doctor Nikolin placed his elbows on the desk, pressing his fingers together and looking through the small bridge his hands made. He loved to do that. It always put the patient on edge, off balance.
“I'm not suicidal,” cried the woman. “I just fell asleep and forgot what time it was. I'm fine – except that I have a splitting headache and they won't give me my medicine for it. And they won't give me my anxiety medication either. They just locked me in a moldy cell on a wooden bed in this rag and left me for two days!”
Doctor Nikolin pushed a piece of paper to the edge of the desk along with a ball-point pen.
“Here's the form. Here's a pen. If you want me to consider your case, you have to be admitted. There's no one here on weekends; this is the first opportunity I have had to examine you, but I cannot examine you to see if what you say is true or not until you sign this paper. There are procedures to be observed.”
The woman took the pen and signed a ragged scrawl across the lower line. She dropped the pen on the desk and sat back with a look of defeat. The doctor smiled.
“There now. That wasn't so hard, was it?” He took the paper and put it into the open folder in front of him.
“Nurse, would you return the patient to her room. We'll see how she sleeps and I'll see her in the morning.”
“But you said once I signed that you would see that I got my medication,” the woman screamed. “I have a migraine! I'm in pain!”
“No, that's not what I said. I said I could see you once you were properly admitted. I have patients scheduled. You'll be seen in the morning.”
The doctor waved his hand and the nurse took the woman out of the office, down the hall, into a small room with a bed and a desk, but no chair. The bed was topped with a thin, plastic, inflatable mattress, a flat pillow and a thin, stained blanket. The nurse closed the door, leaving the woman standing in the middle of the room.
The woman immediately sank onto the edge of the bed, placed her hands on her head and pulled it between her knees.
“Oh, God!” she said quietly to herself.
Professional Reviews
Barbara Watkins, Reviewer for Bookpleasures
Finally – a conspiracy with spunk!
Barbara Watkins – freelance reviewer
Based on a true story: "Terminal Research" by Jon Batson, should be the name you see when the credits role at the end of a suspense thriller at your local theater. This book had all the makings of a five star movie matinee. Mr. Batson takes each one of the characters and brings them to life, and the storyline glides with simplicity. Writing great dialogue is essential in forming a personal connection to the reader - Jon Batson does just that!
As the story begins, a young woman is held against her will in a mental institution. Is there a conspiracy going on here? Creator of a newsletter titled `Look Both Ways' Jack Richmond is following a lead to find the person or persons that had robbed him of his platform - burned his newsletter office to the ground and attacked his friends. Driving up Topanga Canyon Boulevard, he looks out for anyone that appeared suspicious. Jack spots a slender black woman with stunning features coming out of the nearby post office. He soon realizes its Letitia, an old friend from New York. He quickly recalls remembering how she and another friend, Jacob, had mysteriously vanished from his life. Going on a gut impulse, he decides to carefully follow her. Stopping in front of a house, Letitia gets out and goes in. Glancing at the mailbox, Jack gets the surprise of his life when he reads the inscription underneath their names, `Look Both Ways.' Could it be! Could it be his old friends were the culprits? What reasons would they have to betray their friend? On the other hand, could there be a greater work of evil going on here? Oh, you had better believe there is!
I am not going to get into the story any deeper than that. However, `Terminal Research' is most definitely a conspiracy thriller indeed - a story that will keep you thinking about what you have read long after the book is placed on the bookshelf. I highly recommend this read, and suggest to my readers they check out Mr. Batson's other literary works.
Steven Elliot
When one reads the word "Terminal," the first thing that springs to mind is the end, or death. Luckilly in the case of the Jack Richmond series, "Terminal," does not literally mean the end. Reading "Terminal Research," Jon Batson's newest entry in his intellectual, thriller, conspiracy trilogy brings to mind such luminaries in the field as Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, and Dan Brown, with a smidgen of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen and John D. Macdonald thrown in for body. It seems like the type of book that needs a blurb by Stephen King, rather than a review by Steven Elliot. It is that good. Also, like Crichton, Batson, has an extensive resume outside of writing, and this novel has a stamp from the numerous hats Batson wears.
I read Dan Brown's obra de literatura, and took away that he was a potboiler writer that overreached. Yes, it was compelling, but I did not click with his characters. Although I wanted to uncover the conspiracy, I did not really care about whether his protagonist lived or died. This is where Batson, exceeds the "so-called" master. I am vested not only in cheering Jack Richmond on to uncovering the conspiracy, I also want him to survive for the next adventure. Also I thank Batson for introducing the Research Triangle, an area encompassing the uber technology regions of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, to his obviously hip target audience. Although the Triangle is often mentioned in the numerous lists as a "Best Place," to live or relocate, I suspect that for most readers its environs are a new and exciting stomping ground. I predict that Batson, much like John D. Macdonald did with the Florida Keys, will be the author to put this quirky part of North Carolina firmly on the mystery lovers map
Alice Osborn
Leave it to Jon Batson to successfully mix the thriller genre with keen humor. In his most recent novel, Terminal Research, Batson’s protagonist Jack Richmond fights the lies from psychiatrists, mental illness community, the pharmaceutical companies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. These are heady subjects and could have taken a pedantic tone if not for the wealth of one-liners sprinkled throughout the chapters. Batson’s talent at songwriting comes into play with his use of opposites (“As warm as it was outside, the house was cold.”), and spot-on descriptions (“It was hard and sharp, bitter but tangy, like a battery that you stick your tongue to, just to see if it’s still got juice in it—and it does.”)
Batson’s skill at his craft makes the reader care about Jack and his friends who need to tell the public how the drug companies and psychiatrists are drugging their patients when there in fact is no cure for mental illness. The supply and demand will continue for infinity and the public doesn’t know any differently.
Jack used to run a newsletter that shed light on the drug conspiracy, but the headquarters was burned and he lost a dear friend due to his investigations. Diminished, yet still optimistic, he and his girlfriend Teri have kept a low profile and have published blogs keeping their voice alive. But someone else is running Jack’s newsletter, “Look Both Ways.” Now his beloved ‘zine has gone to the enemy: the newsletter advocates for the drug companies and those who prescribe the medications.
Hot on the trail of a mental hospital investigation that imprisons its patients and keeps them locked up against their will, Jack’s colleague Eva Wright and her publisher Paul Hardigan set up a new headquarters in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Meanwhile, Jack finds out who has been running his newsletter and the novel’s action takes off. Never losing its momentum, Batson’s fifth novel is setting the stage for a sixth. If you love your thriller plucked from current headlines with pitch perfect characters who talk like real people, then Terminal Research belongs on your nightstand.
In this whimsical, thought-provoking novel, author Armineh Helen Ohanian presents a fantastic vision of how life might look after death. Martha, after attending her own funeral, travels to Planet Heaven
