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This was the third and final book written and published by Professor-of-English Dr. Karla Turner PhD, who died of breast cancer in 1996 at the tragically young age of 48.

All three of Turner's books focus on the alien abduction phenomenon, but each is radically different from the others in character and format. `Into the Fringe' (1992) is essentially autobiographical and describes the process of how the author became aware that abduction by `alien entities' was the origin of a range of bizarre and otherwise inexplicable events which afflicted her family over many years. The second book `Taken' (1994) chronicles eight separate abduction cases, all women and all disguised with pseudonyms: a complex professional study in hands-on investigative work and deductive reasoning, using scientific methods to collate the data and draw tentative conclusions.

Turner's third book, written roughly concurrently with `Taken', is `Masquerade of Angels'. Prior to buying and reading MoA, I looked at the other reviews posted on amazon to get an idea of what the book was about. Unfortunately none of them tell the prospective reader much about the book or its content, but instead make generalised statements about the author and the abduction phenomenon, so I was none the wiser.

MoA is the story of Ted Rice, an Alabama-born psychic with a life full of the most extraordinary weird incidents of every imaginable flavour, and to top it all off, an alien abductee. The book is written in novelistic style in the third person, divided into five named sections (`The Siege', `The Child', `The Call', `The Maze' and `The Light') of roughly equal length, and runs in total to 255 pages.

The opening section describes the trigger-events which convinced Rice of the reality of the intrusive abductions and subsequently led him to investigate a series of remembered incidents from this newly-understood perspective. The next three sections chronicle Rice's life retrospectively from childhood through adulthood and focus on the paranormal experiences which characterized each phase, including his time spent working in Sun Valley ID where he repeatedly encountered an extraordinary woman called `Maya' who might have been a human-type ET and who taught the young Ted to acknowledge his psychic abilities and how he should use them. Other episodes include some frightening poltergeist activities in a large house he shared with a friend back in Alabama apparently instigated by the former (deceased) owner, and becoming involved with a spiritualist church in Atlanta.

The final part (`The Light') focuses on Rice's sessions with the late Barbara Bartholic who helped him in later life recover his abduction memories in more detail by using hypnotic regression, and how he came to a deeper understanding of what had really been going on. For the curious reader interested in exploring the abduction phenomenon and determined to understand the possible motives of the abductors at a deeper level this is by far the most interesting and informative part of the book, but knowledge of the background of the case expounded in the preceding chapters is useful to get the most from these revelations.

It's no secret that as researchers into this phenomenon, both Turner and Bartholic became convinced of a dark and sinister side to the abductors' agenda - certainly much darker than the oft-quoted and better-known conclusions of Dr. David Jacobs, who in fact stands on more neutral ground. Turner and Bartholic were convinced that the abductors were anything but benign towards humanity, and this perspective forms the book's stark conclusions hinted in the title `Masquerade of Angels': the abductors present themselves as benign to the naïve and gullible abductee, but they ain't no angels. They do what they do for completely self-serving motives, and some of Rice's abduction memories are quite a horror-show (especially those events involving his grandmother).

This alien abduction phenomenon is complex, but a great deal has been uncovered about its nature and purpose by serious researchers like Turner and Bartholic, as well as others like (the late, great) Budd Hopkins and Dr. John Mack of Harvard University; and Dr. David Jacobs, Yvonne Smith, John Carpenter, Katharina Wilson and Raymond Fowler who are all, at the time of writing, mercifully still with us. It is often bound up with other paranormal phenomena and with documented interest from covert quasi-governmental agencies. Unravelling all this complexity demands scientific rigour, deep and persistent investigation of strong cases and at the same time a mind able to stretch to new paradigms unconstrained by the limitations of current orthodoxies and dogmas. It requires intelligence and courage in equal measure and Karla Turner had both, in spades.

Of Turner's three books, I would rate `Taken' as by far the best and `Into the Fringe' second, in what they reveal about the phenomenon. MoA however is worth reading because even though the focus is narrow and at times the narrative loses its way, in the end the conclusions reinforce those of the best work in the field. MoA is easy to read because of Turner's chosen novelistic story-telling format, which gives the book a page-turning continuity lacking in many books on this subject. Unfortunately, the proofreading was not exemplary and some typos and syntax errors escaped the editing process.

BTW does anyone know what became of Ted Rice, and what he's doing now? I can't find any current information about him on the web, let alone up-to-date contact details. 

quoted from:Masquerade of Angels: Karla Turner: 9780964089914: Amazon.com: Books http://amzn.to/127u2GF

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