Cloud of Suspicion by Forler Massnick

About the book

Cloud of Suspicion is a fast-paced mystery relevant to today's headlines about the inevitability of human cloning. It begins with an accidental discovery by a hotshot CEO of a Seattle electronics company and ends with a stunning cover-up masterminded in the Oval Office.

The executive sees an apparent duplicate of his adopted son on the playground of a daycare center. He thinks the adoption center may have concealed the existence of an identical twin and hires a private investigator to check things out.

The adoption center, operated out of a converted old girl's school in rural Minnesota, has a mysterious fourth floor with a secret room. Through an elaborate subterfuge the detective sneaks into the building, almost gets caught, but fails to learn the secrets of the fourth floor.

The detective partners with a sexy female private eye he knows and they pose as husband and wife and prospective adoptive parents to check out the adoption agency. The detective also interviews former female employees, one of whom he has an affair with.

The detective is threatened by a burly employee of the adoption agency. One of the former employees interviewed by the detective is strangled. A suspect is apprehended, tried and convicted. A second trial ensues for the adoption agency employee supposedly behind the murder.

When it becomes apparent that human cloning and legal complications may be involved, the Seattle executive brings in a glamorous and high-powered lady lawyer to work with the private investigator. There is tension between these two as the story unfolds.

A reporter for the New York Times gets a strange phone call from an anonymous tipster. The informant turns out to be a high level whistle blower who reveals that the Pentagon is behind the cloning operation. The reporter plays a key role in bringing possible human cloning to public attention.

The husband and wife team of doctors who conducted successful human cloning experiments at the adoption center are encouraged to leave the country. They go to their luxurious home in Aruba, but then disappear while on a sailing trip. Pentagon involvement in their disappearance is suspected.

Under public pressure for investigations, the President of the United States engineers a cover-up in order to protect secrets about cloning deemed important to national security. The Seattle executive is made an offer he can't refuse to remain quiet about the fact that his adopted son was cloned in the first case of human cloning in history.

About the author

Forler Massnick's long career is bracketed by a start as a journalist and his present occupation as author, management consultant and personal financial analyst. In between he has been a corporate-level vice president of three Fortune 500 companies, president of three entrepreneurial ventures, and a frequently published author on business-related subjects.

Massnick's book on customer satisfaction, published in 1997 by the American Management Association, was titled The Customer is CEO. At the time he headed a consultancy on customer satisfaction measurement. Shortly thereafter he founded an Internet company experiencenet.com that matches independent professionals with companies needing their skills on a freelance basis.

For 22 years Massnick pursued a career as a public relations executive. He was one of the first executives to be accredited by the Public Relations Society of America. He was a vice president of Honeywell Inc., Gould, and The Pillsbury Company, with various responsibilities including media relations, advertising, employee communications, and government affairs.

After graduating from Miami University, Ohio, Massnick became a staff correspondent for International News Service and assistant manager of the Detroit Bureau. Subsequently he joined the public relations staff of Chrysler Corporation where he worked in media relations and as Assistant West Coast Manager of Public Relations.

Massnick has served on many boards of directors, both in business and community organizations. He has also been active in the Episcopal Church, most recently as Senior Warden of Trinity Church, Excelsior, Minnesota.