Unfortunately Paisley finds out that every paradise has its snake when her beautiful daughter, Cassie falls, in love with a young epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Ethan McEnery has come to Rowan Springs to investigate a medical mystery. When he is unexpectedly arrested for rape and murder, Ethan turns to Paisley - and “Leonard” for help.

What follows is a roller coaster ride of slapstick comedy and nail-biting suspense as Paisley, her daughter, and her mother, Anna, search for clues to the crime and the mysterious deaths that brought the CDC to Rowan Springs in the first place.

During their investigations they discover a man who, in his insane desire to become the ultimate judge of who will live and who will die, has unleashed a dangerous and deadly pathogen that may prove impossible for even the most advanced medical science to contain.

This adventure is full of humor, suspense, and the warmth of family and maternal love that keeps up the spirits of the three women under often trying and dangerous circumstances. Their relationship is as real as a conversation around your kitchen table, and after time spent with her, you’ll definitely want to be sassy and irreverent Paisley’s new best friend.

                                                                      Read the first Chapter of The Plague Doctor

Six days after Labor Day I bid a grateful farewell to the sultry and oppressive heat of the dog days of summer. In less than a week, the winds blew away the grey cocoon of humid, low-lying air that had trapped the summer’s heat to expose the brilliant blue of the early autumn sky. These high stratospheric winds scoured fluffy white clouds into thin wispy ribbons. Mares’ tails, that’s what my father used to call those high-striated clouds. He claimed it was sailor’s jargon. I’m sure it was. Sailing was just one of the many things he had loved to do.

The summer had been wet as well as hot. The grass was tall and green, and every hillside was brightly decorated with dancing yellow heads of Goldenrod and Black-eyed Susans. Dainty white splotches of Queen Anne’s Lace lined the roadsides and country lanes. Dragonflies and honeybees skimmed over the newly mown fields with a pleasant hum, and songbirds were outdoing each other with farewell concerts before heading south for the winter. It was my favorite time of year in Kentucky.

Everything would have been perfect except for the fact that my beautiful daughter, Cassandra, was in love again. The first sign of this emotional turn of events came one evening when she asked if she could raid my closet. She needed something silky and feminine from my past. Another dead giveaway was the fact that she kept bumping into furniture and breaking her grandmother’s antique porcelain teacups. And most troubling of all, she had developed a very inconvenient memory loss concerning the care and feeding of her nasty-tempered but adoring Lhasa Apso, Agatha Christie--Aggie for short.

The object of her affections was a nice enough young man. He was not very handsome, but he was not hard to look at in a homely blonde sort of way. He was pleasant and polite, interesting and intelligent, and he enjoyed spending time with the whole family. I tolerated him as politely as I had all of his predecessors.

My imaginary alter ego, Leonard Paisley, the detective hero of my mystery novels, had been instructed by my agent to “get busy or else.” The real writer, me, Paisley Sterling, was having trouble getting started on a new book. Lazy Indian summer days on the farm were just too beautiful. I often found myself gazing through the French doors of the library in my mother’s sprawling country home instead of conjuring up daring deeds for the intrepid Leonard.

More often than not, after a delightful lunch prepared by my culinary genius of a parent, I would whistle for Aggie and sneak out for a run in the back forty. The dog never tired of hunting things smaller and furrier than herself, and I never tired of just being me and being here.

Meadowdale Farm had been in my family for years. When I rented out my townhouse in New York and came back here to live a year ago, I became a true clodhopper, a mud bud, a lover of all things earthy and fertile. I had also happily forsaken my city persona and burned my panty hose. It was clean livin’ in high cotton for me, Paisley Sterling DeLeon, country girl, from now on. Cassie was welcome to anything in my closet. I was through with Gucci and Pucci. My idea of formal dress was a linen jacket over my jeans. If more formality was required, then my presence was not. I kept my unruly auburn hair under bandanas or within the restraint of a ribbon if the occasion called for it. My figure had slimmed to the dimensions of my college days, and my hazel eyes dressed up my freckled face with happiness. I was free of the constraints and demands of city life. I had followed my bliss.

It was ironic, really, if you considered that when I was writing nature-oriented stories, the Bartholomew the Blue-eyed Cricket children’s series, I had lived in the middle of Manhattan. Now, happily ensconced in my rural paradise, I was writing hard-boiled detective novels set in the tough, dirty streets I had abandoned. Unfortunately, I was about to find out that every paradise has its snake.
The afternoon it all began, Aggie and I took a long, satisfying walk over to the man-made lake at the back end of the farm and picked up a ton of beggar lice along the way. I dreaded the thought of having to comb them out of the dog’s thick, soft fur. She was a vicious little mutt and had the bite of a cobra.

We walked for almost two hours before we headed back home. Aggie’s tongue was hanging out, and I was really looking forward to a cold gin and tonic on the patio before dinner.

                                                                           Read the Epilogue for The Plague Doctor

The Plague, the “Black Death” – a rapidly spreading contagion caused by the bacillus Yersina Pestis, is carried in the gut of fleas whose primary host is the black rat. If either flea or rat bites a human, the bacillus has a new host for a few days – until that host dies a violent and painful death.

The Black Plague spread rapidly from Asia in the fourteenth century, decimating the populations of India, Syria, and Armenia, and proceeded to kill off one-third of the population of Europe.

At the time no one knew what caused this horrid disease, although it was thought that bad air and ill humor played a role. Those who could afford to do so fled in great numbers from the crowded cities, seeking the fresh air and pleasures of country life. The poor who lived in squalid and miserable conditions died in great numbers and found a final resting place in mass graves.

Some medieval cities hired, or in some cases forced, medical doctors to care for those citizens who had fallen ill. These “plague doctors” could offer little other than palliative treatment, but were nevertheless asked to visit the sick sometimes as often as three times a day.
The plague doctors adopted a remarkable outfit – something amazingly similar to the modern day bio-containment, or Hazmat suit. It consisted of a long linen robe coated with wax to repel dangerous liquids, long leather boots, leather trousers, and leather gloves. Plague doctors wore hoods over their faces that were tied at the neckline and then tucked into the top of the robe. These hoods had glass eyepieces to protect their eyes and a long beaklike protrusion over the nose that contained spices and herbs thought to be helpful in warding off contagion. A long stick, sometimes painted crimson, served to manipulate contaminated articles or patients.

While the sole function of the medieval doctor was to make his patients more comfortable until they either lived or died, the present day plague doctors have a far different role.

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and occurrence of disease and the use of that knowledge to control health problems. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has a group of young doctors in the Epidemic Intelligence Service whose sole purpose is to track down the cause of and prevent the spread of disease.

Established in 1951, the EIS is meant to serve as an early warning system against biological warfare and man-made epidemics. The program, comprised of medical doctors, researchers, and scientists, had expanded into a surveillance and response unit for all types of epidemics, including birth defects, chronic disease, and injuries.

EIS officers have played major roles in discovering the causes of epidemics such as Legionnaires Disease, Toxic Shock Syndrome, Eosinophilia-myalgia Syndrome, Toxic Oil Syndrome – and the EIS officers discovered how the AIDS virus was transmitted. It was the EIS who investigated the first bio-terrorist event in the United States – an outbreak of Salmonella food poisoning in a small Oregon town caused by intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars by members of a religious commune.

The newest center at the CDC is the National Center on the Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. This center was established because only about twenty-five per cent of babies born with these conditions have a known cause.

The modern day “plague doctors” – the medical detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service – are tireless in their search for the cause and prevention of disease. We are lucky to have them. I am lucky to have known some of the finest.

Thank you all.
Joan