Jim Metzner’s historical fantasy Sacred Mounds opens with a man who has lost time and gained a tattoo on the palm of his hand. Meet Salvador Samuels, a middle-aged man of no particular distinction, except for being the “only Jew on the planet answering to this name.” But don’t call him Salvador; call him Lewis.

Nine months previously, Lewis had awoken from a coma in Mississippi with no idea how he got there, a chunk of his memory missing, and the tattoo of an eye on his right hand. He is now driving home to Kingston, New York when he hears a call for help over the car radio on behalf of a public radio station fundraiser gone awry in the Hudson River. The chapter ends with a cliffhanger to propel the reader into the mystery of Lewis’s lost time.

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