The Red Scorpion Version 2.0

Aztec Calendar (click to enlarge)

My first novel, The Red Scorpion, weaves ancient Aztec legend into a modern cautionary tale about pride, curiosity, and unintended consequences. The story went like this:

In the late 1930s, University of Minnesota anthropologist Dr. Harold Comstock encounters a disaffected youth from a secretive indigenous clan while conducting research in the hills near Tepoztlán, Mexico. The youth reveals a guarded secret connected to Quetzalcoatl and the red scorpions believed to protect the legendary man-god’s final resting place.

Comstock brings one of the scorpions back to Minnesota, confident he has secured a rare scientific treasure. Instead, his arrogance sets in motion a quiet but deadly chain of events. Years later, the abandoned Eagle’s Nest bed-and-breakfast—its dark history reduced to rumor—draws the attention of a curious teenager. Dusty Greene soon learns that some myths endure for a reason, and that not all relics are meant to be disturbed.

So begins the tale of The Red Scorpion, rooted in Aztec legend, transported into a modern world where the conflict between good and evil is but a coffee table discussion with no serious aim other than to entertain.

Boys will be boys and when Dusty discovers the abandoned house, now labeled a haunted house in the Internet age, he's thrilled by the idea of exploring it. Dusty Greene hasn’t learned yet that there are some things we really should be afraid of.

When I was young, I myself was fascinated by the notion that abandoned houses might be haunted houses. My aim in writing the YA (Young Adult) novel was to create a story that would be interesting for teenage boys because it seemed that more girls were readers than the boys, and to covey a message that there really is evil in the world.

A few of the details in my story came from personal experience. One feature of the "haunted house" was that the house was built over a sprig with running water. The idea for this came from my own personal history. I'm a descendent of Daniel Boone, whose father Squire Boone built a home over a spring in Pennsylvania, southwest of what is now Allentown. Visiting that site where the house still stands gave me a concept for the final battle between my hero, Dusty, and the Red Scorpion.

Several years after self-publishing this first book I was contacted by a Hollywood producer regarding another project. When I pitched The Red Scorpion as a film concept, he made a couple suggestions, which led to the development and writing of a treatment for a much larger film concept which we called Beyond the Smoking Mirror. You can check it out Here.

Printed copies of The Red Scorpion are no longer available. A digital version of this book is available here at Amazon.com.

Beyond the Smoking Mirror
https://ennyman3.substack.com/p/beyond-the-smoking-mirror-dfb