During the summer of city riots, a perplexing murder occurs on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. Clues ultimately lead the detectives, Ron Looney and Gene Novalchek, to settle on a Special Operations veteran as the prime suspect. They consult with Ron’s old friend from Air Force times, Tom Bolling, U.S.A.F (ret.) General Officer, now the Chief of Staff at New City Hospital in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati police are also involved in a fentanyl overdose crisis that is affecting elderly individuals.
Police procedure begins to conflict with medical ethics and, later, with business practices in medical practice and insurance funding.
The city riot involvement initially hampers the murder investigation. The two events ultimately twist together in a skein of proceedings that requires insight and personal involvement from the chief of staff to unravel.
A practicing surgeon at New City Medical Center has a unique research concept but is distracted by personal issues at home. His research loses funding for lack of progress. Both the surgeon and one of his technicians, who was applying to medical school, get bad news on the same day and angrily leave the hospital; neither is seen again. A short time later the director of research, who gave the bad news to the surgeon, is brutally murdered in his office one evening and the surgeon becomes the main ‘person of interest’.
Other murders occur, with similar circumstances and methods. Detective Ron Looney and his partner team with the retired USAF Brigadier General who is the chief of staff at the hospital. As suspicions about the killer surgeon increase, the chief of staff has to deal with a hospital administrator that does not appreciate academic medicine and a nursing executive who sees physicians not appreciating nurses for their knowledge and skill.
