Shop Steward Detective Hero returns

SLIM TO NONE, A LENNY MOSS MYSTERY, by Timothy Sheard, UAW Local 1981 National Writers Union.

Here's a page flipper, a murder mystery set in a hospital where the invisible, everyday workers are the key. Written by longtime nurse and writer, Timothy Sheard (http://www.timsheard.com), we see 'ordinary people take the stage. Think CSI, but hospital custodians and nurses figure it out, not cops and forsenics. Lenny Moss, a custodian and union steward, is at the center of the action as he and his colleagues take on bosses, ambitious doctors amid corporate downsizing and union busting to figure out who killed a pregnant and beautiful nurse.

Well-written and very down to earth...Lenny and his friends are just as 'normal' and quirky as everyone you know and work with. Their practical knowledge, solidarity and smarts solve this confusing case that leads us down all sorts of blind paths with lives on the line.

Just like so many workers who fight the good fight, we learn that Lenny stuck with it because, "He cherished his place in the hospital, the camaraderie with the other workers... Slugging it out in the trenches, that felt right." Lenny and his friends make it happen and keep it real. When an arrogant doctor says, "You're not just a simple custodian, are you?", Lenny replies, " None of us are simple, doc. All of us have talents and resources you can't spot just by looking at the uniform."

Here's a great read, a complicated mystery, good friends, comradeship in hard times, and union workers shown in full humanity.

Earl Silbar, former steward, AFSCME 3506, City Colleges of Chicago