The Red Triangle by Robert J. Korpella

About the book

Al Tucker, a newly promoted executive at United Plastics Technologies, searches for the cause behind a rash of bizarre, sometimes violent behavior at the Lone Oak, Missouri facility. Sporadic clues begin to point toward Partners for Progress, United Plastics' team training program.

When a red triangle is accidentally found on one of the training videos, Al begins to dig deeper into the process. Soon hundreds of words, symbols and images are found between the frames. Like, won, win-win all appear on the videos in an apparent effort by United Plastics to foster team spirit in its employees through subliminal suggestion. The upbeat tone of the words and images still provide no clue to the violent behaviors at Lone Oak.

But a tattered journal that survives a plane crash claiming the life of its author, leaves a puzzling account of a "message in the mirror."

Al finds a video tape with backward images and a process called Imageworks. One the tape, the innocuous words like and won look like kill now when seen backward, as in a mirror. He also finds out his boss, Karen Kosko, is planting subliminals on the CEO's PC in an effort to secure his resignation so she can ascend to head United Plastics. Al's only option is to lay out the evidence to Hubert F. Lloyd, an influential board member.

The Red Triangle ends with Karen's forced resignation and the shutdown of Imageworks. Only a small group of people ever knew of the subliminals' existence.

About the author

Robert J. Korpella was born in Indiana in 1955 and earned his B.S. degree in Business from the University of Arkansas in 1980. After career moves that involved brief stops in Connecticut, Oklahoma, Illinois and Arkansas, he and his family settled in a small town in the Missouri Ozarks. A lengthy tenure in manufacturing included jobs in factory labor, supervision and human resources management for such well known companies as Rubbermaid, Mobil Oil and Union Carbide. This experience gave Bob an opportunity to work with and observe people at all social and economic levels and gave rise to the idea that resulted in The Red Triangle.

Bob earned his designation as a Senior Professional in Human Resources in 1993. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, and was selected to appear in the International Who's Who of Professionals. Bob now works as a consultant and contractor in human resources management in addition to pursuing his writing career.

The Red Triangle is Bob's first novel. He is currently working on a second as well as on a screenplay.