Books by Robert Rahula

The Erikschitz Principle

"It has always been my belief that the smallest of quirks can set into motion huge events, or forestall huge events... for example, how stopping to tie your shoe makes you thirty seconds late to the intersection that you normally cross on your way to work, and thus you avoid being mowed down by a truck whose brakes had just failed..."

Thus starts the strange story of the ERIKSCHITZ PRINCIPLE, a story of the synchronicity of events between a love-stricken victim of a romance scam, an overweight policeman, a warehouse full of illegal immigrants, one unlucky security guard, an expat American living in Panama, and the disabled lottery ticket seller who touches all of their lives.

When police chief José Fernando recruits his friend Dan Landes to help investigate a case of murder and human trafficking, neither of them expect to find that solving the case rests on the memory of a single mentally-challenged lottery seller.

Robert Rahula, the author of Inauthenticity and Weightless delivers another intriguing Dan Landes Mystery, centered around the exploits of ex-detective Dan Landes from Los Angeles and the two police chiefs from Panama, José Fernando and Jorge Manuel.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Inauthenticity

What happens when AI hits the porn industry? Dan Landes is about to find out in INAUTHENTICITY, a tale of murder among the upper echelon of porn producers who are fighting to control the new world of AI porn.

When a top porn producer is found dead of a heart attack in Panama, ex-detective Dan Landes suspects foul play. But who would benefit? It turns out that everyone would. Everyone has an axe to grind, including the FBI. Expat Dan Landes travels from Panama to Madrid to unmask who is really who in the new world of AI porn.

Robert Rahula, the author of the Treasure of the Gran Ventura and Exigent Circumstances delivers another intriguing Dan Landes Mystery, centered around the exploits of ex-detective from Los Angeles, Dan Landes, his expat friend Ricardo Mendes, and the two police chiefs from Panama, José Fernando and Jorge Manuel.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Weightless: A Dan Landes Mystery

Is Ozempic the answer to your prayers or just another trick by Big Pharma to take your money? Ex-detective Dan Landes follows a trail of corporate greed that leads to murder in WEIGHTLESS.

An ambitious doctor opens up a fancy weight-loss vacation resort for the ultra-wealthy in Panama, hoping to kickstart an Ozempic empire. The profits are high, and Wall Street is hungry for a piece of the pie. But when the clinic's semaglutide cocktail turns out to be a recipe for murder, expat Dan Landes is drawn into the investigation.

Robert Rahula, the author of Exigent Circumstances and Inauthenticity delivers another intriguing Dan Landes Mystery, centered around the exploits of ex-detective from Los Angeles, Dan Landes, and the two police chiefs from Panama, José Fernando and Jorge Manuel.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

The Treasure of the Gran Ventura

What is the connection between bitcoin and the collapse of the Bronze Age in 1177 BC? Between the Temple of Moriah in ancient Jerusalem and the central banks of today? Between the Knights of Templar and the end of civilization? Follow ex-detective Dan Landes as he tries to unravel the riddle of thirty-three centuries in the Treasure of the Gran Ventura.

Dan Landes lives the perfect expat life in Central America. But the innocent sale of some old Spanish coins leads to the death of two foreigner treasure hunters, and catapults Dan Landes to the town of Toledo, Spain, where he tries to outmaneuver modern-day Templar Knights to piece together a centuries-old map to the location of buried gold from the Crusades. In doing so, he stumbles upon a plot to collapse the central banks and plunge the world into a new Dark Ages.

Robert Rahula, the author of Exigent Circumstances and Uninvited Guest delivers another intriguing Dan Landes Mystery, centered around the exploits of ex-detective Dan Landes, his expat friend Ricardo Mendes, and the two police chiefs from Panama, José Fernando and Jorge Manuel.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Old Dogs New Poems

Alma-Gator Press is proud to present a brand new collection of poems by expatriate American poet Robert Rahula. These are "Portilla" poems. Portilla literally means porthole in Spanish, the small window in a ship from which a sailor can stare from his tiny confined cabin out to the vastness of the sea. Portilla is a style of poetry that exploded in popularity in the late seventies in Madrid, Spain, during La Movida Madrileña - that movement of free expression that erupted after the death of Franco, when young men and women were finally free to express their anger at the dictatorship that had confined them for so long, and finally free to explore sexual themes and practices that had been forbidden to them.

Robert Rahula was living in Madrid during those years, presenting his poems at poetry readings in bars and coffee shops, crafting his art, and developing his own unique style of Portilla poetry, a style that accepts human alienation as a norm and deals directly with both sexuality and death. For over fifty years, Robert has continued to write and publish. His poetic output during his life has been nothing less than astonishing. The poems in this new collection are not arms-length intellectualisms, but poetic transcriptions of real life, with all its ecstasy, eventual deception, separateness, and pointless decay.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Behind the Pearly Gates
What really happened in the Garden of Eden? Who was behind the serpent and the apple? What was God thinking? At last it can be told! The unexpurgated story of what really happens in Heaven. Why God created Time. The truth about His friendship with Satan. Those rumors of a drinking problem. The meaning of life. Whether sin really exists. The political power of the three angels’ unions. Read all about it! These are the stories that the cherubim don’t want you to know! This is what really goes on Behind the Pearly Gates. From Robert Rahula, author of Horror Stories for Children, comes an incisive and humorous collection of short stories revealing the sordid truth and nefarious goings-on in the Garden of Eden.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

To Die in Toledo
What if, after you die, your life just continues on, in exactly the same manner as when you were alive? In this riveting and often humorous novel by Robert Rahula, an American expat wakes up dead in Toledo, Spain, and discovers that nothing has changed, except that he is dead. He continues to interact with all his old friends, and they with him. Only he alone knows that he’s dead. In his journey through this afterlife, he ponders the meaning of the choices he made during his life, the nature of consciousness, the non-existence of free will, the flow of time, and existence of multiple universes.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

50 Years Down the Drain
Here at last is the preeminent collection of Robert Rahula’s best-known Portilla poems. Portilla literally means porthole in Spanish, the small window in a ship from which a sailor can stare from his tiny confined cabin out to the vastness of the sea. Portilla is a style of poetry that emerged in the late seventies in Madrid, Spain, during La Movida Madrileña — that explosion of free expression that erupted after the death of Franco, when young men and women were finally free to express their anger at the dictatorship that had confined them for so long, and finally free to explore sexual themes and practices that had been forbidden to them. Robert Rahula was living in Madrid during those years, presenting his poems at poetry readings in bars and coffee shops, crafting his art, and developing his own unique style of Portilla poetry, a style that accepts human alienation as a norm and deals directly with both sexuality and death. For over fifty years, Robert has continued to write and publish. His poetic output during his life has been nothing less than astonishing. His poems are not arms-length intellectualisms, but poetic transcriptions of real life, with all its free-flowing polyamorous energy, its ecstasy, eventual deception, separateness, and pointless decay.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

A Modest Summation of Things
What if you knew were going to die and only had one afternoon to give an accounting of your life? That is the task that has been presented to Ricardo, an old expat living in a tiny dusty town in Panama, a town where he has sought refuge from the world for the past fifteen years. When it dawns on Ricardo that death is near, he feels an ancient urge to provide a reckoning of his life, his past loves, his polyamorous excesses, his philosophy, and his failures. He gives himself one afternoon to complete his accounting before he packs his bags.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Uninvited Guest
"When Death - that uninvited and unwelcomed guest - arrives, all plans cease; everyone has to stop and make adjustments; and everyone has to deal with it." Magali - a young prostitute of Villa Rosario, Panama - has died. Her ex-lovers, including friends Ricardo and Dan Landes, attend her funeral, each harboring different memories of her. In fact, everyone harbors different memories of her, because no one really knew who she was. But her ghost comes back from the grave to prod ex-detective Dan Landes to uncover the truth about her death. It's a journey that leads him into a labyrinth of sorcery, Colombian drug lords, FBI surveillance, and murder. But uncovering the truth about Magali's death may be easier than uncovering the truth about her life. In UNINVITED GUEST, author Robert Rahula follows the lives of expatriates living in a small town in Panama, and uses them as a looking-glass into a world of existential dilemmas faced all of those who try and maintain their humanity in a world of colliding cultures.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Horror Stories for Children
Despite the title, HORROR STORIES FOR CHILDREN is definitely NOT for children. Here are 21 adult short stories from one of Spain’s most accomplished and brilliant writers. Robert Rahula delivers a dazzling collection of contemporary “portilla” short stories – that writing style that interweaves graphic sexual detail, existential philosophy, wry political commentary, and intricate dreamlike plots. A large talking bear waxes philosophical on the nature of evil while eating pancakes. Scientists work together mapping the Higgs Boson particle while secretly plotting the seduction of each others’ wives. A man joins the Bad Luck Club and learns the ultimate method for changing his luck. A lover of Thai ladyboys confronts the nature of desire. Pay phones that connect to God. Forbidden pleasures in a crematorium. A duck walks into a bar. All this and more in this wonderful new collection.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Expat Poems
The word expatriate derives from the French expatrier (and originally from the Latin expatriatus) meaning to banish, and evokes a feeling of being forced out of one’s homeland… assuming one ever felt at home to start with. The 63 poems in this anthology originally appeared in five books of English poetry that Robert Rahula wrote between 2014 and 2017, but they represent his lifetime of experiences traveling through Europe, the United States, Mexico, and Central America. These are poems of the wanderer, the outcast, immigrants, pilgrims, the disenfranchised, drifters, wayfarers and nomads. They are unapologetically polyamorous and realpolitik, occasionally dark but never despairing. They are emblematic of the expatriate experience everywhere.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

The Essential Dan Landes
THE ESSENTIAL DAN LANDES is a collection of the three best-known Dan Landes Mystery novels by Robert Rahula: BATHHOUSE STORIES, ALLTHE YAGE IN RENO, and EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES. Originally published as three separate books, they were always envisioned as a unified whole – one story spanning three years in the life of expat and ex-detective Dan Landes, as he struggles to forget his past as a disgraced L.A. detective, numb his conscience, and cope with the shifting morality of his life in Panama, where murder is sometimes a solution rather than a problem. Contains adult material. 18 and older please.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Exigent Circumstances
Dan Landes is “ex” everything: expatriate, ex-detective, and exhausted. He has returned to Panama from a year of recuperation in the United States, ready to resume a quiet life of hunting ayahuasca plants in the mountains. But evil is coming to Panama – or rather, through Panama – as a sinister team of murderers seeks to smuggle the world’s most lethal biological weapon into the United States through Central America. A dead body in a hotel room starts the investigation, and returns from beyond the grave to force Dan to find the killers.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

All the Yage in Reno
Panama has a certain wild side, where brujos brew ayahuasca in the mountains and everyone – even the police – operates outside the law. As a retired L.A. detective with his own moral code, Dan Landes thought he had found the perfect expat lifestyle when he moved there ten years ago. But he is forced to flee back to the states after witnessing a brutal murder. In this stand-alone sequel to his existential novel BATHHOUSE STORIES, Robert Rahula picks up the story of Dan Landes as he lands in Reno, Nevada, and tries to put his life back together. He gets a job as a security guard in a small and starts dating Ashley, who works in the ’s bar. Things seem to be going well until Ashley’s psychotic ex-boyfriend is released from jail. Dan is forced to seek out a mysterious ayahuasca-drinking brujo to prevent another murder.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

From Whose Bourn
“…death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns”. In his seventh book of English poems, Robert Rahula explores the meaning of life in the face of inevitable and looming death. Each of the 36 poems forms a piece of a kaleidoscope vision of life. Images of past loves, past marriages, bisexual encounters, politics from Vietnam War to Trump, expatriate travels, ghosts from the future… all collide form a recapitulation – an accounting – of what truly matters when everything is ultimately useless.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Poemas Españoles
For the past 20 years, Robert Rahula’s Spanish poems have either been out of print or only available directly from his Spanish publishers. But here, finally, are 23 of Robert Rahula’s best known Spanish poems, available for the first time on Amazon. These are the best examples of the Spanish “portilla” style of fluid imagery that he is famous for: the blend of past and future events, sexuality, political commentary, and existential questioning.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Conversation in a Belgian Bar
In his seventh English novel, CONVERSATION IN A BELGIAN BAR, Robert Rahula tells the story of a chance encounter in a Belgian bar between a young American and an old man named François Rayon. The young American discovers that Mr. Rayon appears to personally know an author that the young man has long admired and idolized. In fact, the old man seems to know intimate details – far more than he should know – about the young man’s hero. Intrigued, the young American joins the old man at his table and begins to question him, and then listens while François Rayon recounts a strange and sexually disturbing story of how the younger man’s hero spent his last years. Slowly, the truth about the young man’s hero and all his human frailties are revealed. But only at the very end of the conversation does François Rayon reveal why has taken the young man into his confidence.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

One Last Fling
Robert Rahula’s fifth English novel finds the American expat Ricardo, now aging and alone, living a quiet life in a small dusty village in Panama. He is obsessed with having one last romantic fling, but his nightly dreams are invaded by images of a mysterious brujo, an ancient sorcerer who has not been seen in 15 years. As the dreams increase in frequency and in sexual intensity, Ricardo’s expatriate paradise is torn apart as he begins to question his sanity. Then one day, the brujo appears in person.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Bathhouse Stories 
In an unnamed and timeless Latin American country, the lives of six men and three police officers intertwine after a brutal murder in a gay bathhouse. Dan Landes, an expat L.A. cop, is recruited by the local police to lead the hunt for a serial killer who preys on lonely men in the dark steam rooms. In this graphic and violent story, Robert Rahula explores both the humanity and dangers of the bathhouse culture.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Wonderland 
In his sixth book of English poems, WONDERLAND, Robert Rahula explores the dark or “puerta oscura” side of the “portilla” style of poetry. These are explicit poems detailing sexuality, aging, and the deconstruction of modern life. Yet, as Robert demonstrates, the puerta oscura style has the most light, the most hope and humor of all the portilla styles of poetry.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Day Another Paradise In
In his new book, DAY ANOTHER PARADISE IN, Robert Rahula returns to the pure “portilla” style of writing – that mixture of eroticism, magical realism, and existentialism for which he is so famous in Spain.  DAY ANOTHER PARADISE IN concerns a single day in the life of Ricardo, the American expat living in Panama, but in that one day we see his past and his future unfold.  The book juxtaposes the fragmented consciousness of Ricardo with the actions of the people around him: his former lover the prostitute Magali; his best friend Miguel; and most importantly, his nightly visitor the crazy old man who talks to a giant fly that only he can see – a giant fly who advises the old man, and Ricardo, on the meaning of love, time, money, and life.  This is Robert Rahula’s fourth book in the adventures of the expat Ricardo, but it stands alone as a complete story of a man, out of joint with his time, yet struggling to make his way.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Island of Misfits
Over the past twenty years, Robert Rahula has established himself as one of the most interesting and uncompromising writers of the outsider genre.  ISLAND OF MISFITS, his third English novel, follows American expat Ricardo, caught up in a murder investigation in the small Panamanian town of Villa Rosario.  In Villa Rosario, only the thinnest moral line divides the murder victims, the murderer, and the police trying to capture a psychopath driven by sexual hatred.  When Ricardo is targeted as the next victim, he is forced to flee back to the states and confront his own dark secrets.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

I Sing the Body Politic
I SING THE BODY POLITIC is Robert Rahula's 5th book of English poems.  Based on the "portilla" style of popular Spanish poetry, these are sexually graphic poems that deal with the political side of love, bisexuality, separateness, and growing older.  In these raw sensual poems, Robert explores the political side of adult relationships in modern society.

No aspect of love, romance, and sexuality is off limits as Robert explores the effects of class, aging, AIDS, bisexuality, love and desire on contemporary relationships.  "Robert Rahula's writing is beyond the cutting edge of poetry - he's the bleeding edge of a new poetic movement." - Editor Joseph Wambatten.  Order this brand new release of political/sexual poetry by Spain's top poet.
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Half Life
Robert Rahula has published over 14 books of poetry and prose in Spain over the past 20 years, but he was unknown in the United States until the release of his first English novel MESSIEURS on Kindle in 2012. HALF LIFE is the distillation of the best of Robert Rahula's English works - sampled from his fourteen English books of poetry and prose. Here is the essence of the "portilla" style of writing, that blend of erotic imagery, bi- and poly- sexual themes, and existential commentary that he developed in Spain 20 years ago and brought to the United States. Adult content. 18 and older, please.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Panamaniac
In PANAMANIAC, Ricardo decides to quit his job at a prestigious New York law firm and move to Panama, where he hopes to find the perfect combination of sex (straight/gay/bi/trans) and time - time to pursue his secret career as a short story writer. What he discovers, however, is not the paradise he sought, but a dark and twisted road to self-discovery. 18 and older only.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Migration
Robert Rahula has published over 14 books of poetry and prose in Spain over the past 20 years, but he is virtually unknown in the United States. MIGRATION is his fourth book of English poems. Based on the "portilla" style of popular Spanish poetry, these are sexually graphic poems of the mystical immigrant’s experience of love, bisexuality, separateness, and growing older.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Camino
In CAMINO (Spanish for the road or the way), Robert brings us all new poems for 2014. Inspired by his journeys on the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, Robert weaves the mythos of the pilgrim’s journey into the darker aspects of the soul.  Whether it’s the steamy bathhouses of Madrid, the brothels of Amsterdam, or the pilgrim’s prayer for transcendence over human suffering, Robert’s writing always touches the common thread – the yearning for the real experience of something beyond ourselves.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Messieurs
Translated by Joseph Wambatten
Can sexual obsession ever lead to love?  Or is it an addiction that keeps us from love?  MESSIEURS is a GLBT novel that tells the interwoven story of 3 men who spend their adult lives trying to find love and meaning through endless sexual encounters.  Monsieur, the French narrator in Part 1, divorced and solitary, drifts through the cities of France, seeking and seducing women but never connecting with them, and repeatedly returns to the gay bathhouses for sanctuary.  Until he meets Enid.  Back in the U.S.A., Paul, the straight narrator of Part 2, is an author who knows Monsieur because he wrote about him in his first published book.  Paul thinks his writing career is off and running, and starts writing his second book on the S&M culture.  But the characters in his book are stronger than he expected and they begin to become more real to him than his own life.  Ricardo, the bisexual narrator of Part 3, knows both Monsieur and Paul.  Ricardo is also obsessed with love and sex but from the older man’s perspective. He finds comfort in the brothels of Canada and begins to fall in love with a 19 year old prostitute named Haley.  All three men, in their own way, find that their obsession with sex, while addictive and dangerous, is their only connection to the possibility of love.  This is a dark, edgy, graphic novel that will appeal to bisexual/poly men and women.  Available for the first time in this excellent English translation.
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Trigger Points
Available at Amazon.com.
Although Robert Rahula has published over 14 books of poetry and prose over the past 20 years, he is virtually unknown outside of Spain.  This is his first book of English poems.  Continuing the themes of MESSIEURS, this book explores Robert’s real life relationship with Enid, the elusive woman in MESSIEURS.  Based on the “portilla” style of popular Spanish poetry, these are sexually graphic poems dealing with love, loss, bisexuality, and separateness.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.

Inside the Locked Heart (Dentro Del Corazón Bloqueada)
In this excellent translation by Joseph Wambatten, we see Robert’s expansion of the “portilla” style of poetry to explore love and lust in the face of aging and mortality.  Evoking themes of Whitman and Edgar Lee Masters in a graphic examination of modern sexuality, INSIDE THE LOCKED HEART is the quintessential Robert Rahula poetry.
Free sample pages available on Amazon.com by clicking on the picture of the book cover to the right.