Le Grand Dénouement

By G. W. Fletcher

The Hightower cloud hangs over Duluth and the surrounding communities, as it has for several generations. The smoky haze will linger for a few more years, we expect. Aftershocks rumbling around the Minnesota North Shore region left your esteemed author mixing metaphors like a Texas tornado in a ten-gallon hat. This series of four episodes, plus one, comprising a single amazing story arc, springs from our reporting on the abrupt Hightower meltdown, Le Grand Dénouement de Hightower.. The uncanny convolution of human nature, pivotal events of personal consequence and intertwining chains of personal destiny revealed themselves slowly, through many hours of meticulous research and skilled investigative journalism. Meanwhile, your esteemed editor has authorized publication of several of our books that feature epic stories involving the graft, grift, greed and corruption of this northern backwoods crime family. If you haven't already, we suggest you go buy them and join our vast reading audience in some great adventure. While we wait impatiently for Guy and Joy to wrap up their research, your esteemed editor has been tossing us fresh leftovers and tantalizing table scraps from his notes about the events leading up to the Hightower meltdown. With the discriminating taste and infallible nose of a purebred newshound, we consumed the best tidbits and tossed others aside. We zigged and zagged through forest and field conducting extensive research and interviews with people who had tangental encounters and accidental roles in the final act, along with principal players in the Hightower grand dénouement. A number of the main characters we interviewed were so captivating that we were obliged to stop and tell their stories. Several characters that were no longer available to us made similar entreaties upon your esteemed author and we responded accordingly, faithfully and with due diligence. We tracked down all sorts of incidents, accidents, bystanders, culprits, victims and co-conspirators, uncovering more than a few criminal acts and numerous instances of unseemly behavior. What we found surprised even ourselves. Distillation of hours of conversations and many pages of research notes yielded three extraordinary backstories so compelling that they appear not as youthful background or adolescent subplots, but as full-grown, emancipated stories. The fourth episode was our initial target for this book, the final act, the long-awaited, much-anticipated but unexpectedly-sudden meltdown of the Hightower mob. We observed first-hand, mostly from a safe distance. In fact, it appears your esteemed editor and your esteemed author might have meddled a bit in the events we report on. We aren't saying for sure just yet. Such is the delightful vocation of a doggedly determined investigative author working alongside a towering intellect like Professor Guy Bublé, without whom the Hightowers would likely still be wantonly wreaking havoc among the good, hearty citizens around Minnesota's largest seaport and gateway to the state's arctic region. Meanwhile, your esteemed editor and his lovely wife continue to labor diligently on the definitive book about the corrupt Hightowers of the North Shore. Much remains to be told about that sordid, moldering batch of misguided humanity. Fortunately, we won't make you wait. Your esteemed editor agreed to publish this while he wraps up the much larger, comprehensive and definitive Hightower story.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DBZ8H9X2
• ISBN13: 9798334705319
• Release Date: August 2024
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 251 Pages
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.6" x 5.3"