Publications
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MASK MORTEM
MARCH 6, 2022
Dr. Jayant "Jick" Arnsson is a successful anesthesiologist, nearing retirement with a dispirited feeling of having accomplished nothing. While shopping at an antiques store, he stumbles upon an ancient, dome-shaped mask. This Mask Mortem, or "mask of death" is also a reputed "Healer of Life." Piqued by its reference to a healer, Jick buys the mask to hang in his office, located next to the operating rooms at a busy hospital.
The mask develops an inexplicable vibrancy that Jick realizes occurs only when someone dies on the table. One day, Jick puts on the mask and sees a vision that he is convinced reflects the last minutes of life of a murdered woman and, through her eyes, sees the killer. Later, Jick realizes that other, seemingly unrelated murders are connected. He alerts his brother, an investigative reporter, who is eager to investigate the murders. When Jick realizes the killer is wise to the investigation, he is frantic to save his brother- and uncovers the full scope of the mask's powers...
"The author aptly wraps up the murders, the vision-inducing mask, and even a certain character’s personal dilemma with astounding satisfaction." -- Kirkus Reviews
RUBATO
JANUARY 20, 2023
After his surreal adventure in Mask Mortem, Jick Arnsson is eager to travel and explore new relationships. His first stop is Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he meets Brenda Grahamson.
Brenda is on a quest to find her sister, who is missing and may have joined a cult. Reluctant to get involved, but eager to pursue the relationship, Jick agrees to help Brenda find her sister.
They locate the cult compound outside a small town in eastern Utah. Brenda joins the cult to find her sister as Jick camps nearby. One night, he is awakened by a sound. He is shocked when he witnesses the vicious murder of a man who seems to be fleeing from the compound.
Jick realizes the cult is not "a commune full of dopeheads," as he had once thought. Then the murders start piling up, and Jick is forced into a life-and-death struggle against a malevolent and seemingly invincible cult leader with a sinister ability...
"An absorbing revenge tale with a multifaceted protagonist..."-- Kirkus Reviews
Bio
Arun Rajagopal, MD, is a practicing part-time physician, living in Hawaii.
He was born in India and at age four, moved to Bangkok, Thailand. At age seven, he moved to Saigon, Vietnam, during the height of the war. (His father worked for an oil company.) When the war took a turn for the worse and the multinational companies pulled out, he returned to India, living in Mumbai for the next five years. Then it was back on the oil trail and he moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. After a couple of years in the tundra, with surreal experiences like gazing at the northern lights from his backyard, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he finished high school, college, and medical school.
Before medical school, he finished a bachelor's degree in Chemistry and worked at Arco Oil and Gas for a couple of years. After medical school, he was in academia as an assistant professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center for five years. This was followed by a fifteen-year career in private practice as an anesthesiologist and pain management physician in Salt Lake City, Utah, where his wife's family roots run deep.
He was an avid reader growing up and always wanted to find time to write. Thanks to Covid, enough time opened up in 2021 and he wrote his debut novel, Mask Mortem, the origin story of Jick Arnsson, the protagonist. Practicing part-time has allowed him to complete his second novel, Rubato, released in January, 2023.
Without spoiling the plot for his first book, Mask Mortem was predicated on his anxiety about growing old. No doubt this is a shared anxiety by many people. Arun felt an escapist thriller about this would resonate with the reading public. He submitted his first book to Kirkus Reviews and their comment about the ending being a "doozy, veering in a direction most readers won't anticipate", is spot on.
Arun now lives among the tropical flowers, palm trees and ocean breezes in Hawaii, with his wife, a fellow physician whom he met in medical school. There's still one fledgling at home (the other three have left the nest), along with two dogs, two cats, and fourteen chickens, the non-humans being mostly his wife’s property.
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Contact
PO BOX 428, HAWI HI 96719