Springtime is a Great Season…
…for reading new stories!
Here are some of my most recently published novels:
Executive Justice: Revised
What will happen in this contemporary novel pitting America’s red, blue, and neutral states against each other?
In 2026, America’s liberal blue states secede, dividing the former United States into three countries: the Confederation (red), the Coalition (blue), and the neutral (white) states.
In retirement, Dr. Cal Boyd and his wife Carol learn that the Confederation has arrested their son Charley in Orlando, Florida, part of a new country formed when the Coalition seceded following Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory.
The Boyds travel to Florida to free Charley, but must struggle with corrupt officials of the Confederation, which has retrogressed into the post-Civil War South, effectively legalizing slavery and harassing minorities.
The Boyds bribe officials to see their son, who is being held as a Coalition (blue states) spy. Charley remains under enhanced interrogation after he refuses to disclose what he has learned in his CIA cover job, developing software against the Confederation’s Russian-developed ransomware, their main source of hard currency.
Cal and Carol gather a team to liberate Charley, but in the meantime, the Confederation has invaded the neutral white states to hijack their industrial productivity.
Is this a likely scenario or purely fiction?
Venoms: A Journey to the Dark Side
Mike Francis took a weekend bike ride in Topanga Canyon and never returned.
In 1971, Max King is the new president of the Intern-Resident Association at LA County Hospital. A nurse there, Mary Francis, asks for his help following the mysterious disappearance of her husband, Mike, an infectious disease fellow and protégé of Franklin Delano Rousseau (FDR), a famous faculty member at USC who specializes in venomous snakes. Max agrees to help.
Mike had previously accompanied FDR on trips to Southeast Asia to collect snake venom for manufacturing antivenom. Now he is missing.
When asked to supervise the drug overdose service at his hospital, Max learns about heroin production in Thailand’s Golden Triangle. Wondering if this could be related to Mike’s disappearance, Max contacts his former mentor on a summer project that researched heroin rehab.
This leads Max to believe that Mike’s fate has something to do with the drug business in Southeast Asia. He takes a photo of Mike to the VA hospital, where he encounters a vet who saw Mike working in a heroin distribution network in Vietnam.
Who would be powerful enough to arrange for Mike’s disappearance?
The idea for Venoms is loosely based on a surgery resident who disappeared in Topanga Canyon.
The Drug Dealer
Who better to write a medical drama than a physician? Semi-retired doctor and author Henry Rex Greene once again delves into the medical world in his latest novel, The Drug Dealer.
After leaving a wonderful career in California, Dr. Max King undergoes quite an odyssey, leading to a job in Ohio with Dr. Kumar, an oncologist who is secretly selling drugs to local high school students. Max’s poignant new experiences include creating a palliative care program. Providing this end-of-life care to patients motivates him to obtain board certification in his great passion, hospice and palliative medicine.
Max’s new employer ends up losing his medical license and blames Max. After firing Max, Dr. Kumar then rehires him out of desperation. Max and another physician try to help Dr. Kumar with his rehabilitation, but he remains in denial and ends up an alcoholic.
This timely story about drug use, greed, and their connection to healthcare makes for an exciting read.
