Secrets of the Universe: (What They Didn’t Tell You in School) by Jon Batson 

“Secrets of the Universe gives sweet cool lemon-aide to people who have allowed their life’s story to turn them into sour pusses. Reading your lessons learned and shared in this pleasurable and often amusing book is like watching you standing on the corner on a hot summer day in your Hawaiian shirt, glass in hand, telling folks who pass by to ‘take this nice cool drink with them it will do them good!’ Your words of wisdom give readers access to learn how to begin to live a better life and reminds me of the deep nuggets of truth from the Book of Wisdom.” ~ Bernadette Pickles, Pretty In Pink Foundation  Available in Paperback $12.95  Kindle $.99

The Jack Richmond Series by Jon Batson  -  A fact-based, action-adventure fiction series!

DEADLY RESEARCH - Unpublished novelist Jack Richmond is given an assignment by a “publisher” to write a book focusing on the current culture. He accepts the offer and the much-needed sizable advance. His research takes him down a dangerous path of data gathering on a group that would rather not have the information revealed. Jack, his girlfriend Teri, and their friends find themselves the target of numerous attempts on their lives. Paperback $12.95  Kindle $.99

RESEARCH TRIANGLE: GUNS, DRUGS and CHILDREN – In the second of the series Jack Richmond and friends are now “safely” in the sleepy historical town of Hillsborough, North Carolina. Following a lead, Jack works his way into a building on the edge of the Research Triangle where college students are being remotely monitored for reactions to a new medication. As he is recording the scene, he is horrified at the jubilant reaction of the researchers when 16 students are killed. Some time later Jack awakes in a barren room with no memory at all. Meanwhile popular investigative journalist, Evangeline Wright, is reporting on rising gas prices, school assessments as information gathering tools, and chip implants as monitoring devices. When her research into prescription drugs and their link to school violence starts stepping on toes, she goes missing. Kindle $.99 Paperback $12.95

TERMINAL RESEARCH - 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. Paperback $12.95 Kindle $.99

 REVIEW: Terminal Research: A Jack Richmond Conspiracy Thriller (2011) By Jon Batson Review by 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.

• Find it on Amazon
• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Midnight Whistler Publisher (March 27, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1456490230
• ISBN-13: 978-1456490232

About Jon Batson

Jon Batson is four-time winner of the Lower Cape Fear Short Story Contest and twice Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. He has six completed novels and three short story collections.  All available on Amazon. Jon Batson enjoys researching and writing fact-based fiction, science fiction and experiments with flash fiction and works for young adults. Jon lives with his wife in Raleigh, NC., where he is working on his next novel and, blogging while living life to the fullest.