If you’re a techie, you’ll love The Scarpetta Factor, by Patricia Cornwell. If you’re a technophobe, not so much. The book is one of a series of 17 novels based on Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist. Aside from your technological orientation, you should have an affinity for intrigue and complex plots that jerk you all over the place. And then there are the characters – enough to populate the chorus in Verdi’s Nabucco. Nobody sang in this police investigation – except f

A recent event here in Palm Beach County, Florida, echoes – in reverse – the injustice meted out to the main character in my book Murder in Palm Beach by a judicial system that sometimes functions more as a good ol’ boy network than an arbiter of justice. Elizabeth Savitt I refer to a judge’s recommendation that the state abandon its effort to remove the registration of a professional guardian ad litem. This is someone appointed to resolve financial disputes between elderly,

Me (left); Dan Rather, holding my book As if the Palm Beaches weren’t home to enough celebs, including authors in various genres, the annual Palm Beach Book Festival imports some. From other states, that is. Nobody from outside the country, so far. They’d probably fear being locked up and deported by the guy who lives here part-time at digs on the ocean where potentates and assorted pompous asses hang out, and plays golf across from the county jail. I’ve gotten in free to a c

President Obama Despite all of the cautionary advice against it, President Obama several days ago used the N word. No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about Nazi. A number of voices in the media have in the past criticized a tendency to compare politicians or political actions with Nazis or Nazism. But in today’s political milieu, such comparisons are all but inevitable. Hinting at President Trump and the radical wing of the Republican Party, Obama said in an address to t

President Donald Trump Last week, I heard on National Public Radio a discussion about the strife among friends and family engendered by the tumultuous political events prior to and following the inauguration of President Donald Trump. It reminded me of historical situations in other countries I’d read about, by which longtime friends turned into enemies, and family members became estranged from each other. When strongmen and politically opposing parties took over the governme

Donald-Trump This presidential election contest is getting scarier by the day. Not just because of the behavior of one of the candidates, but for what it says about our country that nearly half the population supports him. Donald Trump said he would put Hillary Clinton in jail if he became president. One of the women in the long list of those who have accused him of sexually groping them said she plans to leave the country out of fear of his supporters. Perhaps most frighteni

Donald Trump I am going to do something I would never have dreamed of doing, to wit, defend Donald Trump and two other Republican candidates against Bernie Sanders and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Jake Tapper In the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night on CNN, moderator Jake Tapper raised the issue of the safety of vaccines. Trump said he thought it was dangerous to vaccinate children against diseases with large doses all at once, and cited the example of a healthy child

CNN’s Dana Bash Dana Bash, a likable correspondent for cable channel CNN, did anything but live up to her name Sunday in quizzing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about the nuclear weapons negotiations the Obama administration is holding with Iran. The Republican Senate created a firestorm last week by sending a letter signed by 47 of its 54 members to the Iranian regime warning that any deal could become invalid when President Obama leaves office. A huge backlash ensue