John Fulghum, PI, hero of the Afghan War, solves cases which are too hard for the ordinary shamus. Most of his investigations would fall between the cracks of the US judicial system because of laws designed to protect legitimate secrecy or of customs like newspaper self-censorship by which the rich and powerful shield their embarrassing and/or criminal activities.This Volume VIII of the John Fulghum, PI, Mysteries series follows the pattern set in the former seven volumes, three of which are full-blown novels. The horse-loving detective invariably begins studying racing forms while smoking and drinking in his seedy second-floor office above Joe's Ice Cream Shop in Bedford, Massachusetts. From his inauspicious office, Fulghum ranges widely, traveling wherever he must to solve his cases. For example, in Just North of Nothing, the most recent predecessor to this volume, the detective went to Arizona to check out the security for an exclusive desert spa for his friend Max Trevanian, who was unwittingly entangled with mafiosi and Islamist terrorists. Only with the help of Ken Mander and Darcy Latimer of the CIA, Sylvia Blackwood of the Boston Globe and the mysterious Afghan woman named Alia, does Fulghum emerge alive and successful.In this eighth volume are mysteries about rape attics and their supporters extending to the Vatican, a criminal smallpox plot fostered by the insouciance of New England medical dons, a college fentanyl distribution scheme and a host of other fearful and sordid escapades. By Fulghum's side is Sylvia Blackwood, the brilliant archivist of the Boston Globe, with a comprehensive memory of old spiked stories that might never have seen the light of day if she had not discovered how they connected to present-day horrors.Ms. Blackwood's precocious early history as a school newspaper editor, which is documented in E. W. Farnsworth's Women in Charge (2021), also published by AudioArcadia.com, prepared her for an independent role supporting her boyfriend's antics as the intrepid detective. She shares the dangers of her friend's profession, but she also enjoys playing her own games with the agencies.E. W. Farnsworth's next volume in the John Fulghum, PI, Mysteries series, Volume IX, will follow swiftly and, inter alia, take the private investigator back to his old haunts in Afghanistan, during the final days before the US withdrawal, to rescue members of Alia's family.