Haley, A Novel

About the Book

Haley is a story about baby boomers who had almost everything.   A Jewish Psychiatrist and a Jewish business woman lived in San Diego, California.  They met through a personals ad in the National Enquirer in the summer of 1986.  Mitchell, his name, and Cynthia, her name, are models of the a generation.  Individually each enjoy personnel success, money, gated estates, international travel and prestige.  They virtually had it all when they met and within a few months they were living in his palatial Carmel Valley Ranch.  A short time later she was pregnant.  Soon they were fighting.  She began telling her friends and doctors that he wanted to kill her.  She miscarried the baby and the fighting intensified.  She became pregnant again and the fighting became worse.  She miscarried again and the fighting continued until she became pregnant a third time.  They became more amenable.  She decorated for the holidays and seemed to enjoy being part of a Jewish Family.  Before the baby was born the dark side of the woman emerged.  She hated men so she started an affair with a married man and her relationship with Mitchell got bad.  When the baby was born he told her that he was moving to his own place.  She begged him to come home with her and the baby and they would go for counseling with a famous Jewish Psychotherapists.  When it became evident that the relationship was not working and would not ever work, Cynthia psychosis against men became more intense.  She set about to punish Mitchell for what her perceived as his failures.  With the aid and encouragement of the San Diego Police Department she paid an acquaintance a million dollars to set Mitchell up in a murder for hire scheme that would allegedly be to kill her.  In fact she would never be in danger because she was out of the country when the crime was to be committed.  Realizing too late that he had been entrapped, Mitchell plead guilty, lost his medical license and went to prison for many years.  Later she asked the court to deny him all parental rights to the daughter whose name is the title of this book.  That is the simples of the story but the full implication of police intrigue is summed up in the sub-title.  “The story of disgrace and shame by reason of a society that approves of a police policy that nurtures criminal conduct in order to justify a commitment to law enforcement”.  When law enforcement knows that someone is liable or susceptible to commit a crime that will have devastating consequences in his life and in the lives of other, why do they not stop the crime before it is committed and save the individual from ruin instead of encouraging it?  That is the overview of the story and the message of the novel.  Johnson writes with three p’s: purpose, power and persuasion.  He skillfully uses flashbacks and dialogue to fill in missing parts of the story and to create the feeling that you are personally involved in this intrigue and tragedy.  Psychiatric studies and courtroom scenes are woven into the frabric to tell the story effectively.  There is a disclaimer stating that the story is a figment of his imagination but there is an realistic likeness to the events that lead to the downfall of one of San Diego’s most prominent psychiatrists in the early nineties.

About the Author

John A. Johnson is a writer and a teacher. He was born at Westline, Arkansas and now lives in Alameda, California. John published his first story when he was seventeen years old. He claims credit for numerous academic publications and this is his first novel.