Robert L. Van Kirk

Wormwood: High Crimes and a Bunch of Misdemeanors: a Novel Robert L. Van Kirk

The residents of Wormwood, West Virginia, have seen their once-thriving town slip into obscurity and decay. Under the abysmal direction of the business and civic leaders, life has sunk to new lows. Of course new ideas are always welcome-as long as they line the pockets of those in charge. So most everyone has pretty much come to accept things as they are. Besides, what else could go wrong in a town with no future? Who would even bother trying to make an even bigger mess of things? Mayor Little Dick Fleming is trying to unload his methane gas-filled coal mines on the city so he can get out from under the enormous cost of fixing them, hopefully before the town goes up in flames-and he wants a convention center built in his honor in the process. Karl Lamb, a self-styled marketing guru and slaughterhouse owner, is making one last, desperate attempt to stay afloat financially-by using the town's pets as the key to his demented, cost-reduction solution. Returning home after his last employer was shut down by the FBI, private investigator Ty Svenson launches his own business from a single-wide trailer with some serious structural issues. As Ty races to solve a murder and prevent a fresh round of civic atrocities, he falls for a former high school classmate-and a twenty-something librarian. While flood waters bear down on the city, Ty's dating dilemmas are resolved on live TV. It's just another day in Wormwood-and that's the problem.