Ron Looney Mystery Series

Patricia Harding is a young paralegal with aspirations for law school. When she passes out and nearly dies at work, the medical staff at New City Hospital are at a loss for the cause of the otherwise healthy woman's conditions. Soon after, the staff are stunned by a well-respected cardiologist's sudden death while he is on the job. These two seemingly unrelated events lead the Chief of Staff to call on homicide detective Ron Looney to investigate. Death Unexpected is a hospital-based murder mystery that provides an intimate glimpse into the minds and daily lives of medical staff. As Detective Looney and others seek to crack the case, the narrative reveals author G.L. Barbour's expertise and experience in the medical field. For readers hoping for a suspense-filled novel that will also enlighten, Death Unexpected does not disappoint.

         During the summer of city riots, a perplexing murder occurs on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. Clues ultimately lead the detectives, Ron Looney and Gene Novalchek, to settle on a Special Operations veteran as the prime suspect. They consult with Ron's old friend from Air Force times, Tom Bolling, U.S.A.F (ret.) General Officer, now the Chief of Staff at New City Hospital in Cincinnati and begin to close in on their suspect.          The Cincinnati police are also involved in a fentanyl overdose crisis that is affecting elderly individuals and causing several deaths. The dealers do not seem connected to the streets. This involvement initially hampers the murder investigation with manpower shortages. The two investigation skeins ultimately twist together in intertwined proceedings that require Tom Bolling's insight to unravel.

Someone may be trying to kill an old homeless man on the streets of Cincinnati. Or is he just having some really bad luck? New City Hospital third year resident Ben Nealy tries to persuade his professors of the former and finally gets attention from Tom Bolling, chief of staff. Tom is a retired Air Force general whose daily activities involve him in quality of care issues beset by tradition. When he gets involved in Ben's case he draws in an old friend, former Air Force Criminal Investigator Ron Looney to help identify the old man. At that point the case becomes deeper and more sinister than ever.

         New City Hospital in Cincinnati is affiliated with the South West Ohio Medical School in the same city as a major teaching and research hospital. A prominent surgeon at New City loses his research funding and his operating privileges and storms out of the hospital. Shortly thereafter, the head of research is brutally murdered and suspicion falls on the missing surgeon. The bodies of other individuals who have troubled relations with the surgeon begin to pile up. Cincinnati police are puzzled at the missing surgeon's ability to evade their search and to continue killing enemies in a close and personal manner.          The primary investigator, Detective Ron 'Walker' Looney is a retired Air Force criminal investigator and long-time friend of the hospital's chief of staff, a retired Air Force brigadier general and orthopedic surgeon, Tom Bolling. Bolling's concerns for his staff are compounded by worry that the hospital might lose accreditation status from the Joint Commission and have to sever its affiliation with the medical school. Together with a former medical examiner, they piece together a credible case against the missing surgeon. But that case is later blown apart when evidence proves otherwise.          As the detectives begin re-examining the motive behind the killings, another attack occurs with no obvious connection to the surgeon. The detectives wrestle with their previous ideas about a reason for the murders in light of the last attempt and finally get on the trail of the actual killer. They uncover the identity of someone likely to be the next victim. Their attempt to intervene and prevent this planned assault takes them to a baseball game at Great American Baseball Park and a race against time to prevent a murder.

When a man is found dead - and naked - in New City Hospital and is unidentified, the chief of staff calls his friend, Ron Looney, Homicide detective to assist in solving the case. Looney's pursuit of the facts leads him and his partner, Gene Novalchek to encounter violations of hospital procedures, a major corruption scheme in Cincinnati and an intricate attempt at murder. At stake are individual lives, public reputations and a large sum of money. The detectives have to widen their perceptions of complexity and their geographic responsibilities to solve the murder and bring the culprits to justice.

   Where is the 'get out of jail' card when you are arrested as the only suspect in a locked room murder you did not commit?    This scenario faces Dr. James Donaldson when a fellow physician was brutally murdered in the office building they share, and the keycard system indicates only Donaldson and the dead man were in the building. Donaldson's boss is Tom Bolling, chief of staff at the hospital where both men worked. Tom thinks the answer is to get the assigned detective, Rocky, off the case and get his friend, Homicide Detective Ron Looney, to investigate. Bolling and Looney both hail from Arkansas and share a time of active duty service in the Air Force.    Looney is opposed to the suggestion for several reasons but agrees to at least interview Donaldson. That encounter convinces him that Donaldson is likely innocent. Such belief pushes Looney to meet with Rocky to persuade him to give up the case. Rocky is opposed to the concept initially, as is the head of the detective division, the tough, and strict Captain Thorason. Looney, however, has devised a highly unusual end scenario that gains Rocky's approval and the grudging nod from the Captain.    After getting an official sanction for his involvement, Looney and his partner, Gene, face the task of solving how Donaldson could be innocent. Looney does figure out the 'locked building' conundrum using observational skills and analysis.    But that leaves the detectives faced with finding an elusive Other Dude that committed the murder. Plus, it occurs to them that the murdered man may not have been the real target. They try to determine whether Donaldson was the target; they seek motives of other suspects who might want to pin the murder on him. Their investigation uncovers a sizeable number of people who potentially have motive for the murder, and they face some difficulty obtaining corroboration of alibis because of the nature of medical practice and care processes. Coincidentally, while the detectives are straining to understand the medical work of the dead man to develop a motive, Tom Bolling stumbles on what appears to be a medical miracle cure for leukemia in the dead man's research file. Uncertain whether this cure has anything to do with the murder, Looney's partner, Gene Novalchek, who has a degree in chemistry, joins forces with the hospital pathologist to determine the mysterious treatment.    Once the miracle cure is identified, Looney pieces together a chance remark from early in the investigation with a visit to a local practitioner and a reinterpretation of a handwritten note in the researcher's laboratory notebook. These actions give him insight into a motive for the killing, and he plans an elaborate 'outing' with key suspects and hospital personnel.    Explanations of police and medical care procedures provide texture and depth.