Fighter pilot couple are expelled after James won't fire on UFO over Area 51 and Ellen pulls up from civilian incursion. Pair is home from sojourn in France where they laid low for terrorists in cathedral and dodged snob in cooking class. Maybe they were fleeing James' sketchy links to the alien lovers whom Ellen declined to attack, along with disciples of The Egg who had hooked up. James and Ellen marry in Vegas envisioning their startup of a Grand Canyon charter service. Photo illustrated.

Picaro Jamie Blake embarks on a jewelry-heist spree across the United States, sliding off in a stolen prop plane for kicks, impressing his lady-love, a beautiful -but disenchanted- hawker of baubles on cable. They join and take off for Baja in another lifted plane after Jamie kills and scuttles an adoring, clinging wannabe Buddhist monk who cramps his style. Blake is apprehended by federales after he dives with hammerheads in the Sea of Cortez, leading to his execution in San Quentin. Photo illustrated.

Careerist California environmentalist Henry Harbold, passed over for promotion, forsakes a desert-saving crusade, vanishing as an alligator poacher into the Cajun bayous. An infatuated reporter tracks him down to reunite. Bottom-dwelling bank-robber couple commandeer Harbold's boat, feigning the murder of a gay ex-priest astrologer who had joined Harbold. The reporter and Harbold are violently lost to Nature while the robbers bolt to the Caribbean. Photo illustrated.

Prison psychiatrist Will Jones flees administrative rigors, escaping through immersion in his captivating model railroad outfit, graduating into hopping the rails into exile to mountains and shore. Jones's subordinate, the contemporary Melinda French, plots for his post while becoming embroiled in the flesh with earthy, matter-of-fact convict Angel. French frames Jones for trafficking with prisoners with stolen and planted model locomotive, and silences Angel by murder for stealing shotcaller's porn. French advances to department head as Jones trains off in quest of the iconic dream: Heidi. Photo illustrated.

Struggling, wagering Father Matthew McKeorn succumbs to the glamour, allure and sex of Sin City as he tries to lift an ensnared, flailing family (son stealing cars; daughter walking streets) exiled by a putrid economy. A nomadic, fanatical band detect McKeorn as the Satan of Las Vegas, entrapping and publicly sacrificing him as a holocaust against iniquity amid the banality of Circus Circus. Photo illustrated.

An urban couple strive to put their lives on track while grappling with heroin addiction, priming to dodge a descent into crime. Frederick Harris, rebounding off incarceration and a stifled stab at baseball success, finds some salvation in his bond with adjusting Marie, while both grope for light, fighting to promote the prospects of a young daughter within the theater of the dark city. Photo illustrated.

The docu-diary of an Air Force medic reporting on Cold War conflict in Central America in the ‘80s. Harold Stanford paints a firsthand portrait of his American encampment, especially its hospital -its characters and their often petty disputes- as they heal (and probe) their Honduran hosts while the hideousness of war lies over the mountains. Career-centric commanders and gung-ho warriors tussle with jaded enlistees in a prickly stew. Stanford finally sees action -from a distance- when he strikes out on his own into jungled El Salvador where battle seethes between rebels and government loyalists and he is hassled by military and local agents. Non-fiction. Photo illustrated.