Bread to the Wise

Bread to the Wise is Book I of The Libertine trilogy. In 1964 Robert Gattling is an assistant vice-president at a prestigious university, a wunderkind. By 1972 he's a janitor. Bad things end a life-long lucky streak. He begins recovering his mojo when a mentor, Jake Pritchett, urges him to woo beautiful, classy Mary Clare Morrison. Obstacles impede the way to true love. He's used to easy conquests of women who attract him. He has lost the self-confidence to approach a serious relationship with someone like Mary Clare. She too has a mentor, real estate tycoon and political king-maker V. M. Meany, who rescued her from drugs and a degrading relationship and now keeps her in a penthouse apartment. Gattling and Meany battle it out. Jake gets involved and ends up shot by a Meany hired thug. When Meany threatens to rip Gattling's face off, Mary Clare shoots him. Jake dies, Meany survives. It's like the bad things that interrupted Gattling's lucky streak come back to haunt him. Is ardent love enough to bring him back from the depths? It has worked magic on Mary Clare, but will she wait patiently for her lover to lay his ghosts and face life in a loving relationship? Tune in.