FIND VIRGIL: A Novel of Revenge Spotlight post

Today I am spotlighting another interesting book on my blog FIND VIRGIL: A Novel of Revenge by FRANK FREUDBERG. 

Book Info: 
 

Warning: Vigilante Killer--Calculating, Meticulous, and Dying of Lung Cancer--May Be Hazardous to the Wealth of Big Tobacco

 

 

After surviving a hellish childhood, Martin Muntor vowed to prove the world (and his rotten drunk of a father) wrong by doing everything right. He took his work as a journalist seriously. He took care of his family. And he took care of himself. He exercised twice daily, ate a proper diet, and abstained from sugar, liquor, and cigarettes. For his entire adult life, Muntor worked hard, went to church, and lived like a monk. Yet, his chain-smoking wife left him, taking his two daughters with her. He lost his job to downsizing. The final blow, just after losing his health insurance: a diagnosis of lung cancer, Stage 4. All around Martin, people who wasted their minds and polluted their bodies lived on. And he was the one who was dying. He didn’t have time to spare—six months, at best, before the cancer (which his doctors blamed on secondhand smoke) did him in. Muntor was determined to leave a legacy, to wake people up to cherishing the gift of health, and to make Big Tobacco pay for its crimes—its sins—against humanity. If that took sacrificing the lives of several hundred smokers...well, so be it.   

 

In FIND VIRGIL: A Novel of Revenge, Frank Freudberg, a novelist and journalist, traces the chase to stop a smart, ambitious murderer on a mission. Driven by a cast of fully drawn and fascinatingly complex characters, the fast-paced, suspense-packed plot keeps readers gripped and gasping until the final twist. While delivering plenty of action and intrigue, the novel continually crosses ethical boundaries and raises the question: who is the real villain, Muntor (a/k/a Virgil) or the unconscionable, profitable tobacco industry? 

                           

Set in 1995 and centered in Philadelphia, Muntor’s home base, and Asheville, North Carolina, home of Old Carolina Tobacco, Inc., World Headquarters, FIND VIRGIL heats up when the FBI gets on the case of a string of insidious cigarette-related deaths. Spiked with cyanide, the killer smokes were Old Carolina’s Easy Lights, sent to tobacco shops around the country with a counterfeit consumer survey, sealed with the forged signature of the CEO himself, W. Nicholas Pratt. While outraged, Pratt has a more pressing concern. If the feds uncover a top-secret project to clinch Old Carolina’s competitive edge—and what he did to protect it—Pratt could wind up broke and behind bars. His only hope is finding a fall guy. Happily, he knows the perfect candidate: a former Philly cop and hapless fallen hero, Tom Rhoads. As Pratt knows, Rhoads desperately needs money to save not only his struggling security consulting business, but also his baby brother, an alcoholic with a gambling problem to boot. As expected, Rhoads seizes on the offer to earn a bundle working with the FBI on behalf of Old Carolina. What Pratt and his cronies aren’t ready for is how Rhoads rallies to the challenge of catching a killer—and then starts to sympathize with the killer’s cause. 

                                                       

Keeping the tension and the death toll mounting, FIND VIRGIL escalates when the mysterious cigarette killer reveals his alias and begins to share his master plan, ending in a mass-murderous blaze of glory. As the stakes increase, Rhoads grapples with investigative conflicts and moral dilemmas, complicated by the influence of two women: 

     

* Mary Dallaness, a faithful Old Carolina employee whose husband is losing his battle with emphysema. Rhoads believes the attraction is mutual; when Anthony Dallaness abruptly dies, he gets confirmation. Still, he struggles with Mary’s loyalty to a tobacco company—and can’t shake the sense that the woman he loves is in mortal danger.

* Dr. Beatrice Trice, esteemed and seasoned psychiatrist, who disputes the FBI’s profile of Virgil and dismisses their theories about his motivations and next moves. An eccentric, feisty, grandmotherly-like character, Dr. Trice urges Rhoads to heed his hunches and follow his own instincts, eventually becoming a formidable, invaluable ally.

Will the evil Pratt and his flunkies prevail? Will the dying Virgil achieve his dream of taking hundreds of smokers—and the whole damned tobacco industry—to the grave with him? Will the flawed, broken Rhoads succeed at thwarting a killer without killing his message? FIND VIRGIL culminates with the answers—and more. 

  

Forty-five years after the Surgeon General’s mandated warning label, cigarette smoking is responsible for over 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure includes an estimated 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. A masterful thriller with a subtle yet serious message, FIND VIRGIL will leave readers breathless—and, perhaps, fired up to help end Big Tobacco’s reign of carnage. 

 

About the Author

FRANK FREUDBERG is a novelist, journalist, and ghostwriter. His writing has appeared in Reuters, Associated Press, USA Today, Der Spiegel, the Los Angeles Times, and other local newspapers. In addition, his work has been mentioned in many notable publications, including Time, Newsweek, and The Guardian. He particularly enjoys writing about underdogs and their battles with bigger, seemingly unbeatable forces and then watching them prevail. As a devoted father, he keeps his teenage son informed about the dangers of smoking, e-cigarettes included. Freudberg lives near Philadelphia. He is currently working on his next novel.
















Links:
www.findvirgil.com