Eminent Disdain

About the Book

Vista Del Mar, a small California coastal community, is facing financial and legal troubles because a crooked mayor and his cronies mishandled public funds. The mayor's solution to the problem, along with help from the U.S. Supreme Court, is to appropriate a 250 acre grape vineyard next to the town for private development and thereby generate tax money swelling the town's coffers. Dan Miceli, the vineyard's owner and a respected but not loved surgeon, is angry at the idea. Moreover, he becomes suspicious when his long time caretaker and caretaker's wife die in a house fire set by arsonists. He enlists the help of his daughter, Debbie, an LAPD police officer who has been at odds with her father, and F.B.I. agent Denise Weber, to uncover what increasingly looks like a sinister conspiracy. The two women find themselves in the middle of a dangerous plot, chasing down eco-terrorists from California to Arizona. After a near death experience in the cactus state they return to Vista Del Mar, where the investigation comes to an exciting conclusion.

About the Author

The author, a native Californian, is a retired cardiovascular surgeon who lives in Santa Ana, California with his wife Sheila. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Medical School. He is an Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of California, Irvine, where he continues to teach medical students anatomy. Other fictional works have included Seeds for All Seasons, The Seeds We Sow, and Seeds of Doubt.