The Killing Gene

As a child growing up in post World War Two Los Angeles, Leonard Jerome dreamed of being a builder and an architect.  His father, Harry, came home from the war a broken man and physically and verbally abused Leonard, his weak-willed mother, Martha and his physically strong but mentally challenged older brother, William.  Spending his time pursuing academic excellence and trying to stay away from his father, Leonard approached his high school graduation with the possibility of a college scholarship that would allow him to escape once and for all from his dysfunctional family.  Leonard is almost free when a series of events including the death of his brother and a final, fateful confrontation with his father seemingly destroys his dream.   Leonard Jerome is forced to take a different path and heads down a road filled with corruption, deception, organized crime and murder.  He marries into a family he thinks will bring him fame and fortune but instead gives him a wife, a loveless marriage, and a son he abuses unmercifully.  At the same time that Leonard tries to climb his way to the top of the development world in Southern California, Tom Lemon and Gary Peters, detectives in the North Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, began work on solving the gruesome murder of a clerk that worked in the Building and Safety Department for the City of Los Angeles.   With no apparent motive and little in the way of evidence, the two detective’s look into the woman’s background to try and find out why she was killed.  Both men know that time is short and they need to catch a break before the killer possibly strikes again.  In a story that spans decades, the police and Leonard Jerome are on a collision course.  Three more people die.  What, if anything, is Leonard’s involvement in these crimes?  Has Leonard become a greater monster than his father or is there someone else involved that’s looking to make Leonard take the fall.  This is a story of fathers and sons that explores the classic paradigm of nature versus nurture.   Is someone good until they are turned bad by their circumstances in life or can a person be born with a killing gene?