James C. McKay Knihy

This novel is partially autobiographical, and takes Bill Creelman through the Agriculture College at Cornell University, and later as a junior marketing specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The life and career of Bill Creelman was changed forever following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. after Bill Creelman is commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy, the story recounts his experiences in the U.S. Navy as executive officer of a 110-foot subchaser, and later as the commanding officer of a 178-foot patrol craft. This story reflects the worries and concerns of a young man who grew up quickly during a chaotic and tragic period in the history of our country.

Spike! The journey of a boy & his dog during the Great Depression Billy Creelman, the teenager in this story, grew up in the 1930s in the midst of the Great Depression and between two world wars, a turbulent and frightening time. Banks, factories, and stores went out of business. Hundreds of thousands of formerly proud workers stood for hours in food lines and on street corners in all kinds of weather, selling apples and pencils or holding out tin cups for change. "Brother can you spare a dime?" After the bank foreclosed on his parent's tiny dairy farm in Harford County, Maryland, the family was forced to split up. With his faithful companion and best friend, Spike, a Border collie at his side. Billy began hitchhiking to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he planned to live with his Uncle Dan, a war hero with a mysterious past. During their journey, Billy and Spike met some bad people and some good people. They suffered a violent separation, but after life-threatening experiences, were finally reunited under harrowing circumstances. On his journey, Billy saw firsthand some of the destructive effects of the World War and the Depression on the lives of Americans and for the first time looked fear in the face, and learned more that he could have imagined about violence and poverty.

Billy Creelman, the teenager in this story, grew up in the 1930's in the midst of the Great Depression and between two world wars, a turbulent and frightening time. Banks, factories, and stores went out of business. Hundreds of thousands of formerly proud workers stood for hours in food lines and on street corners in all kinds of weather, selling apples and pencils, or holding out tin cups for change. 'Brother can you spare a dime?' After the bank foreclosed on his parent's tiny dairy farm in Harford County, Maryland, the family was forced to split up. With his faithful companion and best friend, Spike, a Border collie at his side, Billy began hitchhiking to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he planned to live with his Uncle Dan, a war hero with a mysterious past. During their journey, Billy and Spike met some bad people and some good people. They suffered a violent separation, but after life-threatening experiences, were finally reunited under harrowing circumstances. On his journey, Billy saw firsthand some of the destructive effects of the World War and the Depression on the lives of Americans and for the first time looked fear in the face, and learned more than he could have imagined about violence and poverty.

Fred Spencer, the highly successful commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is brilliant, honest and hard working. Tom Callahan, Fred's boyhood friend, and close advisor to the President, is the opposite. Tom, who is heavily in debt, takes advantage of Fred's concern over the health of his young daughter, who is HIV positive from a contaminated needle used in a blood transfusion. Tom persuades Fred to accept a bribe from a Japanese pharmaceutical company, with which Tom is conspiring, and prematurely approve the marketing of a new AIDS drug being developed by that company. After agonizing over his decision, Fred agrees to the illegal scheme, with the hope that the drug will cure his daughter. When the criminal scheme unravels, there follows widespread publicity, a Congressional investigation, the appointment of an independent counsel, threatened legal prosecution of Tom and Fred, an agreement by Fred with the independent counsel to testify against his friend, and a tragic denouement in an austere Federal courtroom.