RING OF CONSCIENCE – BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Author: Glenn Wilson Genre: Mystery Thriller Words: 80,000

The Ring of Conscience is an intelligent thriller following two detectives on the trail of a secret legacy held deep within the vaults of Las Vegas while solving the mystery of a suspicious suicide.

Professor Jason Chadwick was a legend. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had helped develop the World Wide Web and even coined the term, ‘Information Super Highway’. He was born in Las Vegas, son of the Donald Chadwick, owner and developer of Casino Security Systems. The Chadwick family moved to England after Donald’s retirement but both Jason’s parents were killed in a car accident within a year of moving. Jason stayed in England and worked as a college lecturer while helping major Internet companies like Google and Myspace develop their technologies. In the spring of 2007, Jason commits suicide.

Ring of Conscience opens with Jason’s Personal Assistant, Amy Pearce sitting in a café in London’s Regent Street. Amy suspects a man that she recognises from an incident prior to the professor’s death is stalking her. Amy senses that she is in danger and attempts to leave the café via a fire exit door downstairs. She is chased and a waiter is killed trying to protect her. Amy escapes and explains to the police that she believes this man may have had something to do with Jason Chadwick’s death.

Jason had two sons that lived in Boston, he had not seen them throughout their childhood years as his ex-wife refused access but they had been in touch in recent years. Jason did not trust them however as they only appeared to be after his money. A series of investigations into his son’s debtors revealed a link to a mafia-style crime organisation in Las Vegas. Jason’s father had helped to bring the family (The Hammond Organisation) down and they all served time for their part in a multi-million dollar fraud of the casinos. Jason had become suspicious and worried. In Jason’s will he left a mere hundred thousand dollars for his sons. The rest of his estate, unbeknown to anybody else had been put into a vault, with a complicated code system – a security feature that had been invented by his father.

Amy had not been left money in Jason’s will, merely a gold cygnet ring with a motif on it. It looked like the letter M in a semi-quaver. Apparently Jason referred to it as his ‘Ring of Conscience’. The ring was made up as a personal talisman.

Meanwhile Jason’s solicitor is missing. He had left a note and some money for Amy warning her that she was in danger. Inspectors Thomas Riley and Lucy Bridges from Charing Cross police station were put on the case and had uncovered in Jason’s will a personal letter to his solicitor whereby he asks him to maintain a website called Melodema.com. The web page is blank with the exception of a password box. Inspector Riley eventually uncovers, in his own time, a steganographic clue, to the password, which opened a new web page detailing a treasure hunt – a series of online puzzles, and clues to enable a person to find his legacy. Jason claimed that to know him would be to understand him and the simple things in life that gave him pleasure.

Thomas Riley and Lucy Bridges had been working together for nearly two years and their fondness for each other was becoming more intense. A night of passion had complicated things further and as interdepartmental relationships were prohibited there were serious repercussions. Thomas was also becoming disillusioned with the police force and following another argument with his boss he decides to make an attempt to claim the Professor’s legacy himself, with Lucy’s help.

Ring of Conscience then follows the two Inspectors attempting to uncover the clues, which, through investigations using the Internet, explore Jason’s passion for Greek mythology, modern myths and architectural mysteries. During their search however, there is a knock on the door and a gunman holds them hostage under orders from a criminal organisation based in Boston. Amy Pearce has already been tricked into flying to Boston to meet a friend of Jason Chadwick and is held in a manor, believing that she is helping the FBI. The Inspectors are convinced that Amy is in danger and agree to help the organisation uncover Jason’s legacy in return for Amy’s release.

Jason’s Chadwick’s solicitor meanwhile travels to Las Vegas and speaks with the then mayor, who claims that she was blackmailed at the time by the Hammond organisation and gives him details of the family’s release and relocation to Boston. He flies to Boston and manages to track down the manor in his own private investigation. He warns Amy that she is in danger, but as he attempts to leave the property to inform the police in England, the Hammond brothers catch him. In the ruckus that follows the solicitor is killed. The family’s weak link, Nathan Hammond is responsible and their perfectly executed plan is thrown into turmoil. At this point, the pressure is on. The inspectors realise that the clues are leading them towards Las Vegas. The Hammond brothers make a deal with the Inspectors to release Amy while they all fly to Las Vegas to solve the remaining clues together in return for a split of Jason’s legacy.

Action moves to Las Vegas and all is well for the first day, then Stock Hammond, the mastermind of the original Hammond fraud is released from Jail just as news starts to break of a body being found off the coast of Boston, believed to be of the missing solicitor from England. The Inspectors suddenly realise that this criminal organisation were just thugs and not the well-organised professionals that they had believed them to be. They attempt to leave Las Vegas but are spotted and the resulting attempt to escape through the streets of Las Vegas is futile. They lose the chase and are in deep trouble now especially as Stock Hammond’s is becoming increasingly volatile.

Eventually, Lucy Bridges uncovers the last clue just in time, she hopes, to save Thomas’s life. They open the vault in the basement of Excalibur Hotel to find that the money – over ninety million dollars, is missing. Amy Pearce and Jason’s friend Emmanuelle had managed to solve the clues together following a tip off from Lucy a few days earlier. Now Lucy realises what she has done. The Hammond family clear off out of Las Vegas just as the FBI move in but Thomas Riley was shot and desperately fights for his life as the frantic search continues for the Hammond brothers.

The book ends with the truth being uncovered about Jason’s death and it ties in with his parent’s fatal accident ten years earlier. The Hammond family were behind it and they are eventually caught, but the ringmaster, the brains behind the whole project, is still at large – and still wants his money. It provides a worrying twist after Amy Pearce shares her windfall with Lucy Bridges and her new husband Thomas Riley, who is making a steady recovery following his shooting in Las Vegas. The Melodema Stone, at the base of the external wall to the Vatican City in Rome is where Amy and her new partner Emmanuelle, Jason’s childhood friend, decide to honour him, the initial clue being the Melodema symbol on Jason’s ‘Ring of Conscience’.