Jess Browning

Incompetence in America Jess Browning

This story has a mystery novel wrapped into it to make it more interesting and informative. The novel begins by describing the characters in Chapter 2. The main character, Henry, is one of those people who has to communicate with people in many organizations. Many of us have had trouble in dealing with an issue with some organization over the telephone. We have to wait as an automated voice tells us what we need to do next in making a call. This is after telling us to push a button on our phone to let them know in what language we want to communicate. Then we may be told to choose from a menu, telling us what button to push. We are then often advised that the wait time is going to be a number of minutes. Sometimes, the computer generated voice tell us that "due to the call volume" we may need to call back at another time. Often they just tell us to leave a message. In the story, Henry seems to understand all this. He knows that his old childhood friend who works for the CIA has become a criminal and possibly a murderer. He was getting drugs, especially the opiate variety, from an orderly who worked in a medical center. Henry's old friend whose name was Frank was repackaging the stolen drugs after diluting them which made some of the drugs very dangerous. The opioids were in greater supply due to the restriction policies of the FDA. Henry had come to Seattle at the request of Frank but, as he learned more about what was going on, he wanted no part of it. Henry found that people, including Frank, had serious character flaws that hindered his investigations .