Sybil Norcroft

Sybil makes a serious mistake. Everyone who knows her or of her is aware that she and Attorney Paul Bel Geddes have locked horns for a decade, and each regard the other as the nemesis. Sybil's error is to get angry, then loud and demeaning, of Paul in a very public black tie New Year's Eve gathering after having received yet one more intent to sue 90 day letter" from the man. Her billionaire husband tries to shush her, but she all but shouted, "Don't patronize me, Charles. That bottom feeder has gone too far. Somebody needs to do something about him."

Sybil Norcroft, M.D., Ph.D, F.A.C.S. leaves California under a cloud. She has been found innocent of a murder charge there but cannot be certain that she will succeed in her new profession as a Wolf News Medical Consultant. The health news story of the century falls into her lap, and the novice commentator runs with the story of weaponized Marburg virus, murdered pygmy slaves, and a world-wide manhunt for the perpetrators. Sybil succeeds beyond anyone's prediction, gains a new daughter in the Congo, and a host of serious friends and enemies who will be part of the rest of her life. She becomes a media darling and an accidental CIA operative. Sybil has to learn like never before how to keep secrets in the new and uncharted country where she now lives.

In Secrets, Dr. Sybil Norcroft feels as if she has gotten in over her head in a welter of secrets and conflicts. She undergoes a lie detector test, gets a major national award, and gets inveigled into a secret association with the CIA, all in a dizzyingly brief period of time. She used to think her career as a practicing neurosurgeon was serious; but, after she is vetted for her CIA position, she gains a new appreciation for "serious". The director asks her, "After you are actively engaged in Company work, failing the lie detector test may mean a Company trial and swift and sure justice-the least noxious being dismissal. Any questions about the seriousness of that kind of justice?" Sybil felt chilly after completing that line of questioning. Her first assignment is to hack into the Russian president's computer system. The second assignment is to kill a man. What on earth has this nice lady from California gotten herself into?

In this, the 4th in the Sybil series, Sybil is given an ultra-top-secret clearance rating based on her previous performance and her ice-in- the-veins way of going about the Company's business. Now she has to juggle life as a wife and mother keeping secrets, as a famous public figure in her profession as a network medical consultant news reporter, and as a CIA agent who is under threat of assassination from an unseen and unnamed mole in the intelligence community. When three of her fellow agents are murdered, Sybil is offered the job of finding the mole which considerably increases her chances of meeting harm. What she does will involve secrets and scandals at the highest level of government.

Sybil Norcroft, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S. has been nominated and confirmed to be the Surgeon General of the United States after a stellar career as a practicing and academic neurosurgeon and as a media darling for Wolf News. But...all is not what it seems to be. Dr. Norcroft is also a consummate spy whose secret life threatens her family and her very existence. The latest threat is to the world, and Sybil must use her role as the Surgeon General to gain access to the secret world of those who plan mass destruction. This turns out not to be an arms-length involvement. No, Sybil must fight.

Sybil Norcroft has spent nearly a lifetime to establish herself as a person of significance in a patriarchal world. Her successes have come at great cost and are, in sum, a mixed blessing. The cost to her family is heightened when, as Surgeon General, she must help her government and her fellow citizens avoid a financial catastrophe owing, in part, to the expenses of health care. She must give her blessing to a hard-line requirement by the Chinese to increase their lending to the U.S. When the Russian mafia--in collusion with the kleptocratic Russian government--launches an attack on the U.S. stock markets in a bid to cripple America, Sybil must aid in a brutal behind-the-scenes cyber fight which she conducts from her position as a secret CIA agent. It comes as no surprise when the Russian government and criminal organizations retaliate. The personal threat to Sybil goes beyond herself and to her family, and she is required to take risks she would never have imagined. There is great danger and great reward in Sybil's latest endeavor. Is she woman enough to handle both?

"It is really quite simple," the renowned French Canadian expert on pituitary surgery began his answer. Neurosurgeon defendant Sybil Norcroft, M.D., F.A.C.S., PhD steeled herself to hear the description that could possibly spell the end of her rising career. Even a glance at the imperturbable face of her defense attorney failed to convey any calm to the roiling tempest in the surgeon's brain. Plaintiff's Attorney Paul Bel Geddes was the attack dog who declared a jihad against Dr. Norcroft in the Brendan McNeely malpractice case and hounded her then and afterward to the point of distraction. The case seared Sybil's soul because she had her own doubts about how and why the handsome young scion of the wealthiest family in the city had bled to death on her operating table. Bel Geddes could not let the animosity that was engendered by the McNeely case go, and he relentlessly pursued the famous woman neurosurgeon in a personal crusade. After years of harassment, Sybil Norcroft had had enough, and she applied her brilliant mind and her considerable resources to ending the war declared against her. The war was a classic example of uncivil justice both in and out of the courtroom. How the JEST comes about is worth the reading. The book is full of fun, humor, anger, fear, pathos, intense emotional conflict, and tense and riveting courtroom drama. There is a considerable amount of theater outside the courts as well. You will want to read it in one sitting and to pass it along to your family and friends the next day.

The Struggle, has a little something for the whole family: sinister backroom meetings, threats of impeachment, spies, lies, traitors, corrupt deals, bad blood, betrayals, DEFCON, carrier squadrons, struggles, stand-offs, ultimatums and intransigence, dirty tricks, missiles, torpedoes, snipers, assassination attempts, black-ops, the ugly visage of secession, premeditated murder, retribution, and successful trial verdicts, changes of heart, some handshakes, some progress, and success in work on American infrastructure, rebuilding after a nationwide insurgency. All in all, a heady mix of the good, the bad, and the beautiful (Sybil Norcroft Daniels, the President of the United States).