A THOUSAND BRIDGES
by Michael McKinney
The day after Candace Furay's abortion—she was raped by Florida gubernatorial hopeful Bob Birk, who insisted on the abortion—she sees her three best friends gunned down by members of a secret private army. Five years pass before Candy's mother, Katherine, is able to find an unlikely white knight—her old friend Patty Sheevers's lover/ partner, down-and-out p.i. McDonald Clay, who ``carved a Sheevers- sized hole in my heart'' after Patty was killed—to stop taking handouts for running Birk's dirty errands and turn on him and his glazed-eyed followers who plan to turn Florida into a police state, legalize drug sales to lowlifes segregated in patrolled camps, and use the resulting revenues to educate ``Florida's other children, the leaders of tomorrow.'' A save-the-world first novel reminiscent of Bulldog Drummond and the Saint at their penny-dreadfullest.