The Duty Crew - Tapa blanda

THE DUTY CREW chronicles December 25, 1972 as the last Christmas of the Vietnam War at Queens Naval Hospital, Long Island. The North Vietnam president’s goal is to accelerate establishing peace talks by bringing violence to all military hospitals in the United States. Ho Chi Minh has an agenda of terrorism and murder for the Duty Crew at Queens Naval Hospital to incite U.S. public reactions against the war, while President Nixon wants to end the war by political arbitration. Three women become aware of the internal and external assault on Queens Naval Hospital. Movie Star Iona Dell spends Christmas in Hanoi as her fans promote an activist presence at the U.S. hospitals. She realizes too late that Hanoi has American sympathizers directing terrorism outside and within their walls. Newswoman Thule Thornbush wants only anti-War slanting of the adverse events on this Christmas Day in the hope she will obtain a position on the staff of the New York Times. LT Minerva Zettler as the Duty Crew Nurse-of-the-Day is the only person identifying the deaths as murders and raises the issue of intrigue inside the hospital. Her fiancé, LT Paul Norman as Junior Medical Officer-of-the-Day realizes almost too late that Zettler’s life is in danger by the murderer inhalation therapy technician. It takes the small Navy and Marine Security Duty Crew and mobilization of the Hospital’s Vietnam returnee patients to stem Ho Chi Minh’s plans for death and destruction on American soil. The events on this Christmas Day forever alter the lives of the three women.

As a baby boomer and retired physician I’m devoting my time to writing medical thrillers. My fiction career began in 2003 preparing speeches in Toastmasters International. I started with THE EYEMAN and THE DUTY CREW reflecting my days of Vietnam service in Navy hospitals. As a lover of medical history COTTER was written to portray post-Civil War medicine’s rapid advances. I believe literature should be educational, fun, serious, full of feelings and always with a touch of fantasy as THE HELIOS RAIN shows. I live in San Antonio, Texas with my wife and 3 cats spending 5-hours a day on new writing, working with editors and trying to promote my e-books. Encouraging my 8 grandchildren to read and write is as much fun as my own writing efforts. Peter Glassman MD, PhD