The Passion of Belle Rio

In the clouds at thirty thousand feet, the world seemed unnecessarily cumbersome and meaningless: the awesome power of the state apparatus, developed over centuries of Roman jurisprudence and English common law and the technical enumeration of data that constructed the bleak tabloid image of anger, love, and violence and reproduced the moment of death in magnificent detail, all mingled with the droning flight above the Windy City, balanced precariously on the edge of the ice-crystal Lake Michigan.

Matthew realized that he feared, deep in his heart, the possibilities of the battle-scarred, blood-stained trailer, where the passion and the promise of love, had to literally be scrapped from the trailer walls with the delicate instruments of a morbid, but curious technology; because in that detailed, chronicled moment, there was actual proof that somebody meant something to somebody, beyond all measure of reason. And it was for that reason that he hated the Law, first and foremost: that there was too Much reason when there was no reason at all and not enough passion when passion was all that mattered.




In a politically charged atmosphere, the past collides with the on-rushing future. Approval of the Net Ban Amendment guarantees the collapse of the seafood industry, to be replaced by expensive real estate, exclusive resort condos, yacht marinas, & the irreversible tide of tourism. Years of tension explode in one terrible night of hate and despair, the tragic consequence of a secret passion. By the time the truth is revealed, no one wants to hear it. Life in Paradise will never be the same.



*Matthew McCutcheon - Lost in Belle Rio, haunted by the memory of his mother, disappointed in love, and the father he never knew.



*Andrew Percy - Owner of a Panama City strip club, caught between corrupt judges, Jai-Alai gamblers & Miami gangsters.



*Attorney Francois Taghert - Who exudes the fear of forbidden knowledge.




*Wilbur "Bud" Hardaway - Family patriarch, larger than the world he inhabits, whose passion for life will ultimately destroy everyone around him.



* Terri Cates - Searching for her Destiny on the Wheel of Fortune.



* Reverend Thomas Carlton - Descendent of Renegade Indians and Runaway Free Negroes, sanctifies the Sugar Bowl Hero, Cleve Thomas, the New Deion.



Belle Rio is as comic, passionate, and violent as it is beautiful. Belle Rio is the memory of love, the gravity of passion, the inevitability of blood, and the irony of fate.