Travels and Travails of a Certified Grouch

When is a kidnap not a kidnap or a train robbery not a train robbery? How does one prove paternity when conception occurred sixty years earlier on an Indian reservation with limited written records? How nearly can the human mind produce total recall if carefully questioned? How does one dispose of unwanted ill-gotten gains and remain under the radar of the IRS?Dr. Thomas McDuff has to untangle each of these puzzles. A retired physician and widowed he is the Certified Grouch of this series. Since his wife passed away he doesn't really care about anything very much. He actively dislikes other doctors, hospitals and Medical Schools. Add to the list: big cities, noisy crowds, short skirts, Linnaean taxonomy, anything cooked in olive oil or flavored with paprika. Almost anything can arouse his ire. Unfortunately for the good doctor a little gray man in a little gray office in the large gray building in the gray atmosphere of San Francisco knows his weakness, contention. If told firmly that the doctor cannot solve some puzzle his answer is "Any scheme devised by one man's mind can be penetrated by another's." And the old man will attack the problem forthwith. McDuff also does not know that the grey man's sign on the gray door of his gray office says, "Intercontinental Floral Transport Company". And that it has little to do with flowers except an occasional funeral wreath. In addition he does not know that the old doctor's efforts, at no expense to the Company, reduces its dependence on 'endowments' from a very luxurious office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D. C.