The Aryan Invasion

The once-discredited "Aryan migration" theory, which forms the basis for the plot of THE ASSASIN LOTUS, is now increasingly accepted to be true:

"The thorniest, most fought-over question in Indian history is slowly but surely getting answered: did Indo-European language speakers, who called themselves Aryans, stream down into India sometime around 2,000 BC – 1,500 BC when the Indus Valley civilization came to an end, bringing with them Sanskrit and a distinctive set of cultural practices? Genetic research based on an avalanche of new DNA evidence is making scientists around the world converge on an unambiguous answer: yes, they did."   [Full article HERE.]

It's not only linguistics and genetics that provide evidence. Among the Aryans' "distinctive set of cultural practices" was the ritual use of a plant-derived drug called "soma"--the same used by the ancient Zoroastrians of Persia (Iran, "land of the Aryans"), who called the courage-inducing substance "haoma." THE ASSASSIN LOTUS imagines the rediscovery of the long-lost drug in the multi-cultural cauldron of modern-day Central Asia--setting off a firestorm of espionage and murder.

"...a genuine suspenseful page-turner steeped in the esoteric history and traditions of both Hinduism and Buddhism." --Bookgasm
"The book is rife with nail-biting tension... The action rarely stops. Angsten hits all the genre highlights--action, suspense, mystery--in this worthwhile thriller." --Kirkus Reviews

Just beginning

"From the age of six, I had a penchant for copying the form of things, and from about 50, my pictures were frequently published; but until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice… Thus when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive."

~Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)