The Poolbeg Book of Irish Ghost Stories by David Marcus

David Marcus was born in South Africa and immigrated during the apartheid era. His early career was devoted in the computer software sector, but he eventually transitioned to aviation, which he had a lifelong fascination for. After a series of events, he found himself in charge of Europe's largest private-jet operation. Born in Johannesburg in 1948, the year the National Party - the party that established and implemented apartheid - came to power, the prospect of South Africa's first democratic election in 1994 piqued my interest. For a limited period, he returned because the possibility to vote freely and personally for the first time in his country's history was alluring.

David avoided associating with any press or literary organizations at the time, opting not to engage in politics. This time off from work was exclusively for the purpose of seeing the end of an period that had dominated his formative years. David volunteered his services to a volunteer air ambulance program in Cape Town, where he piloted different medical trips around South Africa and neighboring countries. There, he came across circumstances so unusual that they necessitated documenting, especially given the fact that he was in Africa, a continent already notorious for unlikely incidents.

Many years passed before he was able to recall his experiences, and Tales From The Cross is a fictionalized version of what he went through. David and his wife Lesley spend their time in Africa photographing wildlife and in the Seychelles, where he works as a scuba diving instructor.