Synopsis: Jacob Cotter dropped out of Yale Medical School in 1863 to enlist in the Union Army with his father Dr. Edward Cotter, then Chief of Medical Staff at Yale. Upon Edward’s murder by Confederate raiders at the battle of Nashville, Jacob Cotter is disinherited by his brother and sister. After the war Cotter becomes a bounty hunter to obtain money to return to Connecticut and complete medical school at Yale. He finds that his siblings have monopolized the valley wine industry through force, murder and intimidation. At Yale, Cotter works with the Colt Firearms heiress to set up his own vineyard. Violence ensues as Cotter and his hands confront efforts to burn him out. After Yale he sets out for Endura Texas. However, he finds 1872 Endura Texas a battleground like the New Haven he left. Victor Vlack, cattle baron and Endura’s largest landowner runs for state congress to thwart Endura becoming a city. Opposition to Vlack’s murders, pillaging and barbed wire oppression comes from Cotter and his physician colleagues. Cotter becomes his vigilante alter ego to confront Vlack’s moves. Cotter also finds his father’s killers working for Vlack. Vlack targets his Clinic and his staff for destruction. This includes his ether anesthetist, Mortimer Pignast, who runs for election against Vlack. Cotter falls in love with the Clinic’s widowed head nurse and her children. He’s torn between being a humanitarian physician, family man and his quest to avenge his father’s murder. Peter Glassman

THE DUTY CREW chronicles December 25, 1972, the last Christmas of the Vietnam War at Queens Naval Hospital, Long Island. The North Vietnam president’s goal is to accelerate peace talks by bringing violence to all military hospitals in the United States. Ho Chi Minh has an agenda of terrorism and murder for the Duty Crew at Queens Naval Hospital to incite U.S. public reactions against the war, while President Nixon wants to end the war by political arbitration. Three women become aware of the internal and external assault on Queens Naval Hospital. Movie Star Iona Dell spends Christmas in Hanoi as her fans promote an activist presence at the U.S. military hospitals. She realizes too late that Hanoi has American sympathizers directing terrorism outside and within their walls. Newswoman Thule Thornbush wants only anti-war slanting of the adverse events on this Christmas Day in the hope she will obtain a position on the staff of the New York Times. LT Minerva Zettler as the Duty Crew Nurse-of-the-Day identifies the deaths as murders and raises the issue of intrigue inside the hospital. Her fiancé, LT Paul Norman as Junior Medical Officer-of-the-Day realizes that Zettler’s life is in danger by the murderer inhalation therapy technician. It takes the small Navy and Marine Security Duty Crew and mobilization of the Hospital’s Vietnam returnee patients to stem Ho Chi Minh’s plans for death and destruction on American soil. The events on this Christmas Day forever alter the lives of the three women.

A medical student, a law student, a dental student and a mob-connected friend have increased their bond from high school days when one of their group is murdered. Deborah Sterling, a Boston hospital nurse was the 7th victim of the Boston Stocking Killer and the group’s only female confidant. The four grief-stricken enraged men pool their resources to seek out and destroy the murderer amidst fruitless efforts by Boston Police and FBI resources in the tumultuous 1960’s. Edmund Sorelli, the Boston Stocking Killer, targets young nurses fitting the profile of his unwed nurse mother. A common thread from the characters’ teenage experiences produces a lethal confrontation a step ahead of the BPD and the Federal Agency.

Holthar, high priest of Stonehenge transcends thousands of years to select a Chosen Templar to save the planet from terrorist destruction. A crow singles out NY Times DC reporter Morgan Kane is given a stone from Stonehenge enabling a connection with the elder priest. Kane, the Chosen Templar, learns the power of light which can impart learning or impart destruction. Kane’s mission becomes apparent quickly. Iran wants to polarize the world into pro-Islam extremism and all others to evoke a world of Allies and Axis forces where there can be only one survivor. Holthar understands there will be no survivors if Iran uses its chemical missile weapons. Kane as the Chosen Templar must get to Tehran and prevent initiation of this last earthly holocaust.

U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL presents 8 short stories of real life happenings to patients and staff during wartime. Central Park has three marine patients testing their recovery by allowing New York City muggers to attack them. Lexington and Thomas Jefferson depicts the author as a Navy Medical Officer caught up in the bureaucracy of a wartime mindset. When the Vietnam War ends the author faces Navy law prosecution for seemingly trivial circumstances in A Tale of Two Boats. The Man In White about a wounded warrior in a total body cast presents an epidemiological nightmare to the hospital commander. You won’t believe how much trouble a wounded marine sergeant creates for himself in The Tattoo. A noted Navy chest surgeon takes up a bow and arrow to stalk his wife’s lover from Central Park in Arrows in the Night. The most outrageous and frightening episode for the author because it really happened to him is revealed in Peter and the Wolf. Dirty Surgery is about germs-the US Navy verses imported bacteria and the paranoia it generates. Albans, Boston and Portsmouth New Hampshire Naval Hospitals all vie for unusual situations with life in a military medical society.

U.S. Air Force Major Dr. Mathew Collins is a military target in his plastic surgery practice. As the sole survivor of his special operations unit in Afghanistan after Iranians attack with the chemical trichothecene–AKA the Helios Rain. The U.S. fears its next home attack will be with this weapon. Collins’ primary physician, Air Force Colonel Dr. Abram Gesecke is actively testing Collins muscle tissue in pursuit of an antidote and reason for his survival. Gesecke urges Collins not to draw attention to his newfound super strength, as Iran wants his medical records and engineer his abduction. Indeed, an Iranian soldier, Lieutenant Kahlid Vermani, another Helios Rain survivor, is sent to the U.S. to find him. Vermani uncovers three Afghanistan veterans named Mathew Collins in his mission. In so doing, he prioritizes his targets–an Army Sergeant, a Navy SEAL Lieutenant and Dr. Collins. It is an agenda of discovery and death. Dr. Collins cannot hide his new powers. San Antonio crime boss Carl Grange discovers him at a fitness center, when Collins rescues the man by lifting 400 pounds off his neck. And when Collins sings the Lord’s Prayer in church with his newfound soul mate Nancy Tilden and her son Frankie, his voice becomes an ethereal, heaven sent delivery inducing a spiritual experience in all who hear him including the U.S. President. Presidential attention adds the Secret Service into the mix of Air Force Security and CIA trying to keep Collins and his new family protected.

THE HAPPY HAT is a medical thriller, crime drama and unusual love story taking place in one of the Navy’s largest stateside military hospitals. The story is based on actual events which the author relives through fictionalized characters. An FBI agent undercover as a Navy corpsman follows a patient in a total body cast from Vietnam to Queens Naval Hospital. The cast contains a half-million in heroin waiting to be picked up by a Brooklyn biodisposal team of killers. The New York cartel eliminates any internal or external threat and films their torturous murders. Chief Corpsman and FBI Agent Isaac Kaplan agonizes trying to filter out the who, what, where’s and whys of the heroin smuggling ring which endangers several lives and the one Nurse who may be the leader–the one he falls in love with.

Kevin Dowd has been plaguing small towns in suburban Connecticut with face-to-face holdups at ATM Machines. Two people are killed in the process. Kevin takes haven in AA meetings immediately after his perpetrations using his attendance to hide from the case-assigned Detective. Dowd is not an alcoholic or addict. Detective Doreen Pousant is getting closer to finding the ATM highwayman and after 2-years the trail keeps ending at St Raphael’s church. Pousant’s alcoholism impedes her progress and she finds herself going into St. Rachael’s AA meetings looking for the criminal. She finds more than confronting her own alcoholism. Her investigation reveals an ongoing plot infiltrating the banking system based in New York City. Further probes uncover that the 2007-9 US economic downfall had its roots in a similar Islamic extremist attack. The ATM perp, the Connecticut Detective and some AA members are caught up in a deadly confrontation that reaches from the small town of Prichard, CT and New York City to Iran and its Al Qaeda links.

Navy LT Dr. Paul Norman and unstable Marine Julio Marco meet at Queens Naval Hospital, New York in 1971. Marco’s psychiatric treatment for alleged atrocities to VC corpses is cut short when the CO transfers Marco to the VA system with a benign diagnosis to avoid a blight on his chances for Admiral stars. The FBI is stone-cold in the dark 15-years later in their pursuit of a murderer who targets Asians and removes their eyes without apparent motive. A summary of the serial homicides in the media prompts Norman to contact the FBI and a hunt for Julio Marco becomes a national Agency priority. Julio Marco, now known as Rupert Petersen, is a respected business magnate in the medical supply industry. Marco only emerges from the Petersen persona when any confrontation occurs with an Asian. Petersen and his two partners from his Vietnam unit conspire to eliminate everyone who had knowledge of Marco’s Naval Hospital treatment. Dr. Norman and his wife, a former Navy Nurse who took care of Marco are last on the list. However, the FBI suspects Norman may be the Eyeman serial killer as those witnesses begin to get killed and no one can back up his story. Only one eccentric FBI Agent, Marvin Pellicle, uncovers incongruities in the evidence against Norman. Julio Marco and the FBI face a collision confrontation in their quest to reach Norman and his wife–one to arrest him and one to kill them.

Mary Murphy has spent a vicious existence at Wilson Medical Products rising to power by blaming faulty anti-FDA practices to get her boss, Dr. Lucy Pintell, fired and ostracized forever from the pharmaceutical industry. From the depths of despair, Pintell meets Dr. Harvey Brasher and together they form The Adjustment Clinic, a clandestine agency that will root out and correct internal malpractices within a drug company and excise the corrupt people responsible for covering up drug toxicity. Under her new identity of Dr. Rowena Diaz, Pintell begins an eight-year journey to confront Mary Murphy and absolve Pintell’s tainted physician legacy. Wilson Medical Products executive Mary Murphy sends an infiltrator into Legg Pharmaceuticals to delay Legg’s FDA submission of a competitive medication and thus gain a major market share with Wilson’s drug. Dr. Porfirio Quintos, CEO of Legg Pharmaceuticals enlists the aid of the Adjustment Clinic against Wilson’s spy. The saboteur from Wilson’s is killed and the submission package of Wilson’s drug is destroyed before it reaches the FDA. Undaunted, Murphy’s next agenda includes attacking Wormwood Drugs and Diagnostics to get their new antibiotic into the FDA first and thereby gain the most market share. Murder, kidnapping and group hypnosis are her tools incorporated into standard ethical drug development.

“Congress approved the new mission for the SEALs. It was based on the evidence you and others have sent from Iraqi and Afghanistan interrogations that terrorists are here from overseas battlefields.” Navy Captain Paul Spada and Congress thus set Islamic extremists in the US as military targets. It was the persistence of Navy SEALS like CDR Wilson Dakin that brought this about. The Navy SEALs become the combat arm of the CIA, DEA, and FBI, under the command of Captain Spada and CDR Wilson Dakin. Their mission is to eliminate all Islamic extremists who have infiltrated this country before they start killing American citizens. Dakin’s Headquarters is in Ocean City, Maryland. Their actions begin in Boston’s MIT, followed by a major confrontation in Las Vegas. The major US battle is yet to come and it’s in Scottsdale, Arizona. A merge of al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS assemble a pilgrimage of non-extreme Muslim worshipers to meet in Scottsdale. They are to face MECCA and show Americans they are indeed peaceable people. The jihadist plan is to kill all 100,000 thousand of them, to evoke terror, and polarize the world as pro-and-anti-Islam. It is a set up for war just like WWII with its fascists and anti-fascists–a new Axis and Ally confrontation which can result in WWIII.

Coffee and a Short Story marks Peter Glassman’s 14th published work and 2nd contemporary short story collection. Here are short, short tales which could be read at breakfast, lunch, or breaks with your favorite coffee drink. A Christmas wish comes true; a mummer job remembered; and a lost college love are among the 45 delightful literary vignettes to make your day fulfilling.

The Myosin Factor After 8-years of focused research, Neurologist Dr. Cosmo Patrini finds a protein factor that reverses the weakness and death sentence of muscular dystrophy’s victims. To test the safety of the drug in humans, he self-injects the drug and has the strength of 15-men as judged by his holding up the collapsing baggage claim apparatus at Boston’s Logan Airport. Three witnesses to the event seek the superhero’s secret. Dr. Gerhard Hardt, a German cardiology drug researcher and Dr. Sin woo Boto, a Chinese pharmaceutical company physician, vie for possession of the molecule. The third man is a popular television aerobic exercise celebrity who threatens Patrini’s anonymity with exposure unless he endorses his TV program The Germans and the Chinese infiltrate Patrini’s professional and domestic life to wrest the secrets of the drug from his Harvard Medical Center laboratory. German scientists select Bostonian victims at random to test the drug on excised human heart tissue. The Chinese have need of Patrini’s discovery to amass an army of superhumans for a world domination agenda. Dr. Boto directs his team to eliminate all competition for their sole possession of the Myosin Factor. The U.S. Government is interested in the Myosin Factor’s potential and has an agent enrolled as Patrini’s graduate student to find out what the Germans and the Chinese are doing. Agent Lazlo Pennypacker works in Patrini’s with and Pennypacker’s boss, Colonel Merlin Sweeney, uses CIA and FBI resources to uncover the faceted plot.

A resistant strain of falciparum malaria accounted for significant US casualties in Iraqi Freedom’s early years. A special research study to treat this type of malaria involved a CDC chief physician and two New York specialists. These three individuals induce, rather than treat acute malaria attacks with added delirium to obtain inside stock market trader information. Almost a billion dollars were made until collateral damage with death and attempted murders draw attention by the NYPD and the CIA. Senator Clement, Drs. Ganucci, Krantz and Bellini use three war returnee malaria patients to milk the stock exchange and use murder, intimidation and extortion to maintain their scheme. Detective Furdis Nosh is a relentless redhead female sleuth who will not let go of the investigation. Former Special Forces Officer David Swanson is a malaria victim who wants out of the malaria study alive. He’s distraught over a colleague ending up comatose during one of his malaria episodes. The woman, Lisa Feldman, is kidnapped from the hospital as her memory of Krantz and Binelli returns. Swanson joins with CIA Agent Mallory Finder when Finder’s fiancée, Lisa Feldman is abducted. Senator Clement uses all means at his disposal to thwart revelation of his malaria-stock market scheme. Snipers, contract killers and deadly healthcare workers reach out with their lethal tentacles to prevent exposure. Nosh and Fender are not enough to probe and disclose the stock market assault.