Loaded Images not showing

I have my images loaded into a subfolder of Images called Books (images/books) when I look at the $products_image_medium used in tpl_modules_main_product_image.php file the value of $products_image_medium is images/books/AbsoluePowerDC.jpg' as I would expect. But the image is not being displayed. What's going on?

Addition info. I've looked into it some more and it seems that the problem is with file_exists() called in Zen_image. It seem to say the file doesn't exits.

Also when I add the image using the load in admin->Categories the file works fine, but when I just copy the name into the Database products->products_image filed it doesn't. as far as i can tell the data is exact. what's happing? I know it has to be something with the db hand mod I'm doing but it is driving me crazy. (I'm working on a tool to allow off line zen cart data manipulation & upload. This is the third store configuration I've done, the first two hadn't this problem. The only difference is that I'm using Book Product Type add-on in this store.)