Brash Endeavor: A Stan Turner Mystery (Stan Turner Mysteries)

Jack Heikel buys on a whim an old abandoned mansion and after moving in, stumbles upon an enormous vault hidden in a secret room in the basement. After using an acetylene torch to gain entry, he finds four million dollars in cash, along with journal records from illegal rackets in the Chicago and Detroit areas in the 1930's. More surprising was a jar of formaldehyde containing nine severed human fingers, three of which wore a very unusual silver signet ring. An ancient manuscript found among the rubble in an upstairs library explains the rings and also spoke of an order of men from biblical times calling themselves "The Knights of Zion." Zack spends years trying to find answers to these mysteries woven into the old mansion as well as why it was built the way it was and who is the old hunchback caretaker that still lives in a shack on the rear of the property. Stranger still, who were the nine bodies buried in the woods behind the mansion and what exactly was the secret elevator shaft that enabled a phantom observer to spy on guests in various parts of the house? Zack finally meets an old time gangster at the hunchback's funeral who is all too familiar with the interior of the mansion. He gives Zack several answers to the mysteries surrounding the old place because he was once a prisoner in the basement dungeon. After hearing these revelations Zack fearing for his family from remnants of the Knighthood, flees the state taking with him the millions in greenbacks and most important, although he is unaware of it at the time, the Mystic RINGS and the Ancient Manuscript. In the future, these two items will have a very profound influence on his life as well as all of Mankind.