The Rat Catcher and the Mole

A tragic yet heroically funny coming of age story about Will Benes, a young man who escaped adolescent years worthy of a Dateline Mystery episode but not without scars. When Will’s latest love interest dumps him like last week’s gumbo he leaps from the Big Easy into the swamp that is River City. As a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assignee to the local health department Will busies himself investigating an outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis. While tracing how an imported Siberian strain of tuberculosis is spreading in River City, Will encounters a Marx Brothers’ cast of characters who stymie, obfuscate and somnambulate their way to the golden nest egg of a city pension. Amidst a tangle of civil service rules Will finds irregularities in how public health is being administered. He meets and befriends Dr. Mackey Dunn, the clinic pecker-checker, and the one seemingly normal person at the health department. Dunn is a kindred soul who’s past reflects Will’s own, but Dunn’s ill-advised quip at the expense of the Laundryman jeopardizes his continued employment. Will sets out to do the first unselfish act of his young life, to save his friend’s job and reputation, but the obstacles he faces are seemingly insurmountable and the epidemic he exposes is far worse than tuberculosis. The Rat Catcher and the Mole is the latest novel from renowned disease detective Don Weiss. At once a hysterical farce and a scathing indictment of governmental bureaucracy, the novel shines a spotlight on small-town, old boy politics and the critical role of taxpayer funded public infrastructure.