Special Assessment

Americans are in love with the exercise of democracy. But, like any worthy love affair, it requires high maintenance and has its moments of doubt, disappointment, and great pain.

Special Assessment explores our love affair with democracy at its most intimate level, the community association, where elected leaders are largely untrained, unpaid, and unpredictable. Life in the association is a curious mixture of volatility and apathy, of common interest and self-interest, of noble aspirations and hidden agendas. This story is a work of fiction and fun although the reader may find a nugget of truth here and there.

Special Assessment is a mystery of sophisticated white-collar crime set against a backdrop of community association activities and characters. It provides an inside view of the distinctive social fabric and politics of community association living.

The new American neighborhood—the community association—is an experiment in close living and private self-government at the most intimate level. And it’s a rich experiment indeed. These condominiums and planned communities have eighteen billion dollars in reserves held in accounts across the country.

Despite such outrageous assets, the associations that govern these private communities have quietly existed, untouched by white-collar crime. Until now.

Special Assessment unfolds with the seemingly perfect crime: an invisible electronic transfer of millions of dollars by a computer genius using a malicious new applet virus. Attorney Joshua Fyler and community manager Michelle Gratiot join forces to protect her business.

They investigate a growing list of suspects, including an egotistical condominium president, a paranoid owner; a greedy information technologist; and other imaginary caricatures from the community association.

While the clever criminals strain to pull off the heist of their lives, Joshua and Michelle carry on a resourceful and feisty attack to stop them. Along the way, Joshua and Michelle are forced to confront their fears of a career-ending crisis as well as their mutual fears of commitment.