The Councilman

About the Book

The Councilman is a fast-paced novel about political and sexual intrigue in city government. It exposes the propensity of the garbage industry to bribe council members to get and keep city contracts. It reveals city government's darker side - an archaic civil service system that virtually guarantees every city employee a lifetime job - city councils that all too often decide matters based on the size of the audience for or against an issue, rather than what is best for the city.

The novel tells the story of a newly appointed councilman who refuses to go along with the mayor and another councilman and cast his vote for the granting of a lucrative garbage collection contract to a mob-connected refuse company. His life is daily threatened; his wife is gang-raped; a woman seduces him only to extort him later. Finally, after refusing to cave in and after the company loses out on the award of contract, he is abducted and forced to stand at the edge of a garbage pit and face certain death at the hands of his nemesis, the company's president. After he is saved at the last moment by courageous police work, the story ends with the indictment of all those culpable and the recall of the mayor and his council cohort.

The Councilman offers a glimpse into what can happen in cities everywhere when local governmental power goes unchecked.

About the Author

The author, a UCLA and USC graduate, has been the city attorney and prosecutor of two California cities. A past president of the City Attorney Association of Southern California, Olson has been a city consultant, a speaker at numerous city attorney conferences and a guest lecturer at the University of California, Riverside.