Ride to Glory

Ride to Glory exposes some of Charles Darwin's more shaky suppositions in a fictional courtroom battle. Billed as Monkey II, the mock trial picks up where the 1925 Scopes "trial of the century" left off, debating the millennium's hot-button issue: "Is Evolution a Fact?"

Gutsy Ph.D. candidate and independent thinker Joshua Chamberlain Ryan is cast as "star" witness, inadvertently pitting him against major Professor Karl Striker, devout defender of Darwinian doctrine. Josh thumbs his nose at Darwin's speculations and puts his academic credentials on the line, irreverently bashing evolution's Achilles' heels with the courage of the biblical Joshua attacking Jericho.

Off-stage, the young "star's" week-in-the-sun encounters roller coaster emotional highs and lows-including a reckless Ride to Glory astride his Arabian mount. Not until the tumultuous week's end do the bleak fortunes of Josh Ryan swing in his favor-thanks to a stellar Monkey II performance and a manipulative grandmother who dexterously laces, pulls, and ties strings of intrigue.

Josh discovers passionate romance with glamorous Monkey II co-star, Traci Kilburn while his estranged, socialite grandmother, "Duchess" Carrington, picks this week of surprises to disclose long-concealed family secrets in a poignant mission of reconciliation.

Ride to Glory's storyline boasts an intellectual zest fortified with bibliography and endnotes packed with solid reference data that reinforce the obstreperous on-stage testimony. In a plot wired for unexpected twists and turns, Charles Robert Darwin's conjectures wind up with the bottom-line short straw.