The Swetky Agency - A Story of Values

Submission Synopsis

A Story of Values
by Gregory Anderson

Length:
112,000

Genre:
Mystery

Series:
Lasting Values... plus plans for a third

Sentence:
A local prosecutor charges a local physician with murder after he had performed an abortion, and the nation comes to Jessup, Indiana.

Blurb:
A respected physician is charged with murder after performing an abortion, and the political world explodes. Both sides in the abortion debate decides it must win this test case, and pull out all the stops. The narrator of the story is a young reporter trying to keep his paper in the forefront of the coverage. pushed by his editor, by events, and by his own conscience. Before the maelstrom blows itself out, more lives have ended, and the reporter is a little wiser.

Synopsis:
Bill Glass, a young reporter for the Jessup Gazette-Journal, is called into the office of the paper's editor, Preston Williams. Williams has a hot tip that Gordon Wallace, the county prosecutor, is up to something big. According to Williams' information, Wallace is about to charge a respected local physician, Bart Alexander, with murder for performing an abortion that Wallace contends ignored Indiana law. Williams sends Glass out to find out if in fact the tip is correct. Glass visits Alexander's OBGYN clinic, and he interviews the deputy prosecutor, Karen Carr, but he comes up basically empty-handed. The morning after Glass' interview with Carr, however, the police raid Alexander's clinic, seize patients' records, and charge Alexander with murder.

At Bart Alexander's arraignment, Gordon Wallace formally charges him with first degree murder in the death of a Baby John Doe-- the State wishing to protect the name of the mother for as long as possible. Alexander's attorney, Cynthia Skelley, moves to expedite the trial, as is her client's right. Wallace objects, citing two more murder cases he is currently preparing, but the judge agrees to the motion, setting a preliminary hearing for three weeks hence. Karen Carr thus becomes the lead prosecutor.

With such a newsworthy case so close at hand, the stakes, and the tension, rise. People on both sides of the right-to-life debate flood Jessup, and the Tillotson Avenue clinic becomes the focal point of protest. Some of it becomes violent. Many patients at the clinic stay away rather than run the gauntlet of protesters and reporters. Demonstrations turn into riots. One protester is killed in a melee.

The stakes are high; Greta Weaver of the United States Abortion Rights Organization decides her side must win, regardless of the cost to Jessup. Weaver's top political aide, Darcy Jones, is a young woman completely committed to her cause. She is also expert in the political tactics used in contemporary America.

Wendy Perrin, the Gazette-Journal's top political and legal reporter, returns from Hawaii to find Bill Glass firmly entrenched as the lead reporter on the lead story of her career. Williams assigns her to team with Glass; Glass is not happy. He redoubles his efforts to crack the case on his own, before he has to share the glory with Perrin.

He gets a break. He finds a key witness who tells him the whole story behind the abortion. The story completely clears Alexander of anything approaching murder. Later, he also is given evidence that Karen Carr is involved in a relationship that includes bondage and sexual submission. When Glass and a colleague, police reporter Sam Perry, go to Carr's home to confront her, they get there in time to hear a shot. In a bedroom, Carr has committed suicide rather than be pressured into blowing the Alexander prosecution or suffering humiliation as her sex life is made public.

Glass has a hunch that Darcy Jones is the person who pushed Carr beyond her breaking point, and he and Perrin finally team up. Perrin is useful in helping Glass confront Jones with their suspicion that she was behind the blackmail attempt. Jones almost cracks under their questioning, but Glass and Perrin finally cannot prove anything.

Bio:
I am a graduate of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Currently, I work as a freelance journalist.

Film:
It's a dramatic situation centered on a controversial subject plenty of action; varied characters interacting.

Additional:
I think it's important to note that the novel takes no side in the abortion debate. I tried to present each side as forcefully as its advocates would, and I think a fair reader would acknowledge at least that attempt.