Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the book. It’s been a movie  and a musical. In all of them, Jekyll is the good guy and Hyde is a monster. What if the roles were reversed? Would you like to find out? Read “Hyde.”

Memories are short. Way back in 1995 there was a war in the Balkans. Since most people in the United States didn’t know (or care) about what was going on outside their borders, the fact that  Bosnians and Serbs were killing each other, brought on little but yawns. I was reminded of the event by a recent story on the back pages of the New York Times  reporting that the people of that region are still digging up bodies from that war.

For anyone interested in recent history, and anyone who likes a suspenseful novel, read “Assignment: Bosnia.”  

In case you haven’t noticed, Cleveland, my old home town, has become a focus of notoriety. First there was the guy who stashed away three women for years and now there’s a serial killer who packs his victims in plastic bags until the odor leads to their discovery.

So what’s new? Serial murdering has been around Northeastern Ohio since the novel Dead End. Okay,the setting is Akron-Canton-Youngstown, but close enough. We don’t know the motivation for the Cleveland killings, but Dead End’s murderer had a genuine agenda, one that is so unique I doubt if you’ll find it anywhere else in life or literature.

The headline in the sports pages reads “Star quarterback (pick a name) is out for the season with a fractured tibia.” Since Aesculapius or some other ancient Greek physician started practicing medicine, the elusive Holy Grail has been to find a superglue for broken bones. Imagine a world where it was no longer necessary to spend months in a smelly, itchy cast, or undergo an operation where plates and screws were needed to hold fractured bones together until they healed.

Well, the fantasy is at hand. “Fracture” is the name of a book  in which a young doctor, himself a fracture victim, has discovered the secret to natural healing of broken bones at a rate that exceeds the wildest dreams. Of course, the path is not without risks since an entire industry had been built on conventional methods of fracture treatment. The ensuing tug of war makes for a suspenseful tale.   

In South Africa a man awoke after seven years in a coma. In Arkansas a man awoke after nineteen years in coma resulting from a car accident. Almost every week similar events are reported. Most of the comas are induced by head injuries or infections, but there are more than fifty conditions that can lead to coma. When a child becomes comatose, in the absence of a history of trauma, the cause is usually infection which can range from encephalitis to a systemic infection with accompanying high fever. In rare instances the cause is difficult to determine.

I have published a book, “Sleeper” based on a true story in which a seven-year-old girl became comatose, recovered consciousness, then lapsed into coma on several occasions. The account of a young doctor’s attempt to find the cause of the child’s problem while faced with pressure from relatives and hospital administrators, makes for a riveting and suspenseful tale.  

Baby Boomers are trading in their panty shields and boxer shorts for Depends©. Retirement homes will soon be running out of space. The world’s food supply can’t last forever, and unless Southwest establishes a route to another planet, we’re stuck here.

Dr. Kevorkian had one answer. But there’s a more pleasant way. You could read my tongue-in-cheek novel “The Old Folks at Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe.” You might die laughing.

Recently, the Shroud of Turin, the controversial cloth which many believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus, went on display in the Cathedral of Turin. In a special TV appearance introduced by Pope Francis, it was announced that, new tests challenge earlier experiments dating it only to the Middle Ages. Instead, dust and pollen which date back earlier

For years The Vatican, tiptoeing carefully, has never claimed that the 14-foot linen cloth was, as some believers claim, used to cover Christ after he was taken from the cross 2,000 years ago. Pope Francis, in line with edicts issued by previous pontiffs, calls the cloth an icon rather than a relic and symbolizes the cruelty of man against man,

I have published a novel “The Shroud” set in modern times in which the Shroud mysteriously disappears from its. vault only to reappear in a remote Italian church—but mutilated. Several segments purportedly containing blood stains have been cut out.By whom and for what purpose? The mystery is pursued and eventually solved by an Interpol detective at a risk to his life.

Careful! Someone has a hand in your pocket. Every day the news contains reports of scams ranging from little more than petty theft to those on the scale of Bernie Madoff .  The deeper the pockets, the greater the reward (and risk.)  In 1931, a team of insurance salesmen, lawyers, doctors, and the thugs they employed, devised a scheme to defraud insurance companies. It was a clever plan and dragged in, by implication, the Dean of Bellevue Hospital Medical School in New York. Eventually, the scammers were caught and punished. Based on these facts I have published a novel “Prescription For Death.” The book is available in paperback and ebook formats

Q What has become senile at age 20?  A  A guided-missile destroyer. I was present in 1993 in Pascagoula, Miss. when USS Russell DDG-59 rolled down the launching pads. Now, in 2013, Russell  limped into the San Diego shipyards for a major overhaul that will require up to a year. During World War Two, I was Medical Officer of USS Russell DD-414 the forerunner of the current destroyer for which the ship was named. I’ve been a guest on DDG-59 on several occasions, most recently at the Change of Command Ceremony  in March, 2013. Earlier this year I published “Survivor: USS Russell a World War Two Destroyer.” The book recounts the life of the “old” Russell during her six years of warfare in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans  including sixteen major engagements. The fact that she brought her crew back home alive makes her a true Survivor