NORMAN BEREFT Norman D Beech has narrowly squeezed by a fatal pile-up on life's highway. Alcohol-induced blackouts have deeply cratered all lanes behind him. The road ahead is fogbound, obscured by uncertainty and doubt. Jobless, beset by creditors, and facing DUI charges, the troubled 40-year-old engineer struggles to get his life in order. Putting his Connecticut house up for sale, he flies back to his boyhood home near Washington, DC, to be with his widowed mother, Ethel. Depression and anxiety attacks impede his recovery. At his mother's urging, he seeks and receives help from her pastor, Father Bob Hopkins. The two men discover much in common, meeting often to confront their fears together and begin a close friendship. Unemployed for over a year, Norm lands a job and meets Kay Bradley, whose charms overcome his fear of getting involved. Unwilling to wait for the Church's annulment of his previous marriage, they elope to Las Vegas. His job-travel demands soon test the strength of their union, but he is ecstatic when he learns that she is pregnant. A Trojan horse of uncertainty works its way back into Norm's life. A tiny seed of doubt precipitates a tragic act leading to the loss of all he holds dear. Overwhelmed by grief and depression, he fixates on an alcoholic teenager as the source of all his misery. Norm has nothing left to live for but his revenge-Warren Ward must pay with his life

Norman D Beech enters the world on D-Day just as the mighty Allied armada is landing on the shore an ocean away. He is marked at birth as different from others, a sign of divinely infused belief conflicted by a compelling bias toward self-indulgence. George Beech, moderate in all things except his unlimited love for his firstborn, is later rewarded with insolence, rebellion, and estrangement. Norman, a lowly foot soldier in the war between good and evil, wanders into the dangerous no-man's-land of mediocrity. The prodigal son's comic misadventures turn deadly as the action shifts from Washington, DC, to New England. His war is waged on a battlefield where the markers between the real and the imaginary are constantly shifting as he seeks escape in an alcoholic fog. To know Norman is to love him; to love him is to put your sanity, if not your life, in peril. He leaves bottles, beauties, and bodies in his wake as he wages his relentless assault on the world. Penitent, Norman seeks forgiveness from his earthly father, only to find him hopelessly lost in the miasma of Alzheimer's. He fights on, searching for love, knowledge, and God, while risking everything to the demons of selfishness, drunkenness, and despair. Teetering on the brink of extinction, he is driven by unseen forces to a final showdown at the Last Chance Saloon.

Norman Beech, depressed and alone, is back on the bottle. Struggling to fight his addiction, the forty-eight-year-old unemployed engineer turns to AA for help. He begins his recovery, unaware that his life is about to be turned upside down, as three strangers make their appearance. Thomas Banks, a diminutive veteran homicide detective, believes that Beech is guilty of murder and has been playing him for the fool; he will stop at nothing to see justice done. Tino Falcone, a good cop and devoted family man, is concerned about his partner, Banks. The hulking former offensive tackle tries to do his job while covering the little man's blindside. Debra Kayly, an attractive thirty-five-year-old blonde, is on the run from authorities. Fearful that her past may catch up with her, she is living on a remote island in Lake Huron. Beech overcomes his difficulties and is riding the wave of success. His future looks bright indeed after he builds his dream house overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, things begin to change for the worse. Like a powerful magnet attracting distant iron filings, NORMAN'S COMFORT begins to draw in its victims with tragic consequences.

Norman Beech, depressed and alone, is back on the bottle. Struggling to fight his addiction, the forty-eight-year-old unemployed engineer turns to AA for help. He begins his recovery, unaware that his life is about to be turned upside down, as three strangers make their appearance. Thomas Banks, a diminutive veteran homicide detective, believes that Beech is guilty of murder and has been playing him for the fool; he will stop at nothing to see justice done. Tino Falcone, a good cop and devoted family man, is concerned about his partner, Banks. The hulking former offensive tackle tries to do his job while covering the little man's blindside. Debra Kayly, an attractive thirty-five-year-old blonde, is on the run from authorities. Fearful that her past may catch up with her, she is living on a remote island in Lake Huron. Beech overcomes his difficulties and is riding the wave of success. His future looks bright indeed after he builds his dream house overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, things begin to change for the worse. Like a powerful magnet attracting distant iron filings, NORMAN'S COMFORT begins to draw in its victims with tragic consequences.

NORMAN BEREFT Norman D Beech has narrowly squeezed by a fatal pile-up on life's highway. Alcohol-induced blackouts have deeply cratered all lanes behind him. The road ahead is fogbound, obscured by uncertainty and doubt. Jobless, beset by creditors, and facing DUI charges, the troubled 40-year-old engineer struggles to get his life in order. Putting his Connecticut house up for sale, he flies back to his boyhood home near Washington, DC, to be with his widowed mother, Ethel. Depression and anxiety attacks impede his recovery. At his mother's urging, he seeks and receives help from her pastor, Father Bob Hopkins. The two men discover much in common, meeting often to confront their fears together and begin a close friendship. Unemployed for over a year, Norm lands a job and meets Kay Bradley, whose charms overcome his fear of getting involved. Unwilling to wait for the Church's annulment of his previous marriage, they elope to Las Vegas. His job-travel demands soon test the strength of their union, but he is ecstatic when he learns that she is pregnant. A Trojan horse of uncertainty works its way back into Norm's life. A tiny seed of doubt precipitates a tragic act leading to the loss of all he holds dear. Overwhelmed by grief and depression, he fixates on an alcoholic teenager as the source of all his misery. Norm has nothing left to live for but his revenge-Warren Ward must pay with his life

Norman D Beech enters the world on D-Day just as the mighty Allied armada is landing on the shore an ocean away. He is marked at birth as different from others, a sign of divinely infused belief conflicted by a compelling bias toward self-indulgence. George Beech, moderate in all things except his unlimited love for his firstborn, is later rewarded with insolence, rebellion, and estrangement. Norman, a lowly foot soldier in the war between good and evil, wanders into the dangerous no-man's-land of mediocrity. The prodigal son's comic misadventures turn deadly as the action shifts from Washington, DC, to New England. His war is waged on a battlefield where the markers between the real and the imaginary are constantly shifting as he seeks escape in an alcoholic fog. To know Norman is to love him; to love him is to put your sanity, if not your life, in peril. He leaves bottles, beauties, and bodies in his wake as he wages his relentless assault on the world. Penitent, Norman seeks forgiveness from his earthly father, only to find him hopelessly lost in the miasma of Alzheimer's. He fights on, searching for love, knowledge, and God, while risking everything to the demons of selfishness, drunkenness, and despair. Teetering on the brink of extinction, he is driven by unseen forces to a final showdown at the Last Chance Saloon.