Fire Fight in Shelter Rock - Alan Miller

The husband-and-wife team of award-winning reporter Mort Ahrens and his law professor wife, Danni Rose, are an unlikely couple to continually become involved in conflict, but inevitably, conflict seems to find them, immerse them in its web, and just as inevitably, force a conclusion. When Mort is assigned to research and write a feature on the book-banning hysteria gripping the nation, it brings him to Kansas, Mississippi, Florida and a host of other states. With his assistant Alison Powers pursuing answers in a Midwest city, seeking to find out why a weekly newspaper was raided under false pretenses in an effort to shut it down, their quests coalesce, and joined by Danni, end up in an exciting series of events which include a poisoning, a priest who forsakes his vows, a sinner seeking redemption, an unlikely romance, a group of religious book-banning leaders who are not as righteous as they profess, multiple threats, intimidation and violence to librarians and bookstores, a devious and corrupt politician, attempts to stifle literature, the murder of a famous author, courtroom tension, the death of an attorney by a disgruntled adversary, an attempted carjacking, sessions in a psychologist's office, a crisis on a Ferris wheel and much more. Challenges seem to constantly present themselves to this unique couple, but the solutions involve humor, pathos, and in this case, challenges to the very foundations of democracy.