The Last Time Machine

by Roger L. Johnson

"I'm dead My name is Daniel Hilton. I am an artillery Captain with the Union Army, assigned to the Second Regiment of the Baltimore Volunteers. I am under the orders of General Winfield Scott to meet and escort a secret shipment of newly-minted gold coins from Richmond to the Potomac River. The last thing I remember before the lightening struck me was picking up the strange coin. I am now inside a smoke-filled chamber with Lieutenant Alderson's severed arm at my feet. In a moment, I will step into either heaven or hell. This is not as I expected death to be. May God have mercy on my soul." So begins the amazing saga of Captain Daniel Hilton as he steps from the time machine into the world of the young but self-centered CEO of RothCor; Jessica Rothman. At first, Jessica wants to kill Daniel for his interference in her ingenious gold heist, but as these complex and diverse characters develop and adjust to their precarious and unusual relationship, she presents him with a horrible moral dilemma. "The price of your ticket back to your wife and child is to be one of my lovers."

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2008

Reviews

[Peter Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic plot and character development! As I turned the pages I kept asking myself why this isn't a movie. If you haven't read this great time travel novel, just a quick synopsis: Jessica Rothman sends six mercenaries from the year 2020 to 1861 to steal and hide the ton of newly-minted gold $10 and $20 Confederate coins that Jefferson Davis put in a Richmond bank to get Virginia to join the rebellion. But the six get trapped when Union Captain Daniel Hilton picks up and actuates their retrieval disk, sending him to the Tesla-Rothman time machine. Now you have two fish-out-of-water scenarios that play out in the most unexpected fashion. There's an Air Force General who wants to insert himself in the Battle of Troy. There is an old Holocaust Jew who travels back to Poland to save his family. And there is so much more that I would love to tell you...but it would ruin the story.

I am serious that this would make a fantastic movie!! It has everything! Love, honor, discipline, treason, envy, disdain, loyalty, and an ultimatum like none other.

[Roger Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are "into" either the Civil War, high-tech gadgetry, time travel, or just plain old plot-driven story with all of the elements that make a book great, you'll love The Last Time Machine. There are a few sub-plots that add the necessary "sugar and spice" that I like in a novel. General Waterhouse travels back to Troy to get himself into the history books. The strippers at a local gentleman's club swear that the robber shot the three guys with a ray gun. Nurses break the rules for offers of food. The lead woman has no morals while the man from the past has high morals.
The author has painted a complete picture and filled in all the blanks along the way. No "red herrings" to wonder about. All the threads tie together to weave a seamless story that demands you keep reading. I laughed. I cried. I loved. I hated. Oh, and the author never uses a "he said" or "she said." That made the reading move along with a steady flow that kept me at it far into the night.
I understand that this author has eight other novels available on Kindle as ebooks or paperback at very reasonable prices. "TAGNET," "Prophets of Damocles," "Have Wings, Be Magic, and Never Ever Die," "Redwood Search and Rescue Association," "An Unspoken Darknes,." "Single Entry," and A Tooth For An Eye."