Belladonna

"Belladonna" is a fictional novel about greed, corruption, inter-familial struggles, deep psychosis, poisonings, and murder intersecting with loyalty, enduring friendship, solid investigational analysis plus an intriguing actual event. Most of the plotline takes place in the present but a substantial part of the denouement harkens back to the historically accurate sinking of a British Man-o-War off the coast of Montauk, New York, during the Revolutionary War year of 1781. A previously unknown treasure is stolen from the wreck by three defecting sailors who promptly disappear into the mists of Long Island history. But part of the purloined booty turns up again, in modern times, in a most curious way. Most of the main characters are members of the fictional Harris family and their various employees and retainers. The Harris' are fabulously rich, heirs to a corporate empire and totally dysfunctional. A long history of jealousies, infidelities, inter-family squabbles, and embezzlements now turns into a deadly round of eliminations conducted mostly by a mysterious woman who styles herself the "Belladonna"-"the deadly nightshade." Who is she? What does she want? Why is she scything down the family and its employees with such deliberation? Trying to stem the flow of blood and stop the rising body count is an old family friend, Admiral James Griffin, who is now the head of one of the most secretive Federal anti-terror directorates at the Pentagon. Is there a connection? Sadly, yes. Also coming to the rescue is Adm. Griffin's brilliant wife, Gracie Connors, who applies her considerable forensic skills to the problem and eventually cracks the case. But not before more bodies fall and Gracie herself nearly becomes the intended last victim of the clearly unbalanced "Belladonna." "Belladonna" is a sequel, in terms of several characters, to the author's award-winning first novel, "Animus."