Book Description

Since the average attention span these days could best be measured in nanoseconds, I have created a tale with two story lines with the focus switching intermittently like a TV screen. One story is about Annika from the backwoods of Maine being sent out into the wild world with admonition from her father that if she wants to leave this world with a smile on her face, she had better add at least a smidgen of additional knowledge to what we now know about our universe. In her attempt to do that, she stumbles upon the fact that our civilization's justice system, going back even before Christ, is a 2,000-year ritual unimpeded by improvements. Criminals are caught, convicted, and warehoused with their board, room, medical expenses, and supervision all paid for by us. After having been stacked away for a while, they are released and then they return; and this takes place in an enlightened society. Only a dim-witted people would allow anything that stupid to happen. Annika hits on an idea that would solve the mess, but to accomplish this, she needs money. Billions. The alternate story is about how, through sheer ingenuity, she manages to earn that money, thanks to a method so simple that somebody should have thought of it long ago. But nobody did.