Thanks to the frailty of the human body, I had to cancel a mentoring session with MBA students at Middle Tennessee State University. The students were developing a plan to improve performance of a real-life Tennessee business. I am truly disappointed that I missed that opportunity to work with these students, and of course I feel like I let the University down. .
Second, the trip back to the hospital was another setback in the publishing schedule for Diversion. It seems like the publishing Gods are throwing everything they have at us in any effort to derail the new book. They must be in the pocket of the pill mill money guys.
Of course, the truth is my illnesses and the new book’s release are unrelated, but people are making a lot of money from the diversion of medical opioids to recreational use. My new book paints an ugly picture of life under the influence of opioids. It is a picture that those profiting from the diversion of drugs would prefer you never see.
Back to the hospital. What was I doing there? The doctors really don’t have all the answers. What they know is that the bacterial infection I had when I was fist admitted a few weeks ago came back. The doctors put me in the hospital over a concern that the bacteria could invade the blood stream. For the first two days, I never raised my head. I slept. My strength and energy were completely drained as my body fought off the infection. Eventually I won; the infection lost—at least for now. I just hope it doesn’t come back again for a third try at me.
Fortunately, I was able to hand off the manuscript to the formatters prior to being shuffled off to the hospital. That puts the book on automatic. Now that they are getting close to having a releasable book, let me tell you a little about the story. While it is a work of fiction, the best fiction starts with real life. In this case, the fact is we are in the middle of a drug crisis, and on another front, we are at war with enemies in the Middle East. Diversion is about the opioid crisis, illegal drugs, murder, a missing girl, Bonnaroo, and a plot to shut down American military drones.
The drug crisis is fueled by the illegal use of pain medications like Percocet and Fentanyl. Until recently, pill mills in Florida were where you went for a prescription. Now those drugs are moving to rural Middle Tennessee.
The bucolic area around Manchester and Tullahoma, Tennessee, has become infested with pill mills selling prescriptions for cash. That area is home of the Bonnaroo Music Festival and the propulsion test facilities at the Arnold Air Force Base that are essential to keep military drones flying in the war against terrorism. Both the Bonnaroo fans and the testing facilities are targets the country’s enemies are willing to die for.
A call for help from an old family friend puts Mark Rollins and his WHC team of crime fighters right in the middle of it all. It was a simple enough request. All Rollins had to do was drive to the jail in Manchester, collect the girl, and take her home to her desperate mother. But, the girl wasn’t there! What had seemed simple quickly became dangerously complicated.
Diversion—the opioid crisis, illegal drugs, murder, a missing girl, Bonnaroo, and a plot to shut down American military drones.
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For signed copies of books by Tom Collins, go to the TomCollinsAuthor.com. Unsigned print and eBook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. For an audio edition of The Claret Murders go to http://amzn.com/B00IV5ZJEI. eBook editions are also available through Apple iTunes’ iBook’s Store and Smashwords.com.
Published by I-65 North, Inc.