The Fourth Quill

In the early days of AIDS, a San Francisco Health Department counselor is propelled into a mystery quest after a very ill member of an AIDS support group he runs kills himself in a way that brings media attention and political controversy which gets the counselor, Jonathan Stiers, on national television. Lynn Graves, a young woman from LaCrosse, moves to D.C. and gets a job with a consulting firm with a patriotic-sounding name that audits government research; in the xerox room one day she finds what seems to be a report on research into a totally successful cure for HIV—an issue which has become critical for her personally as she's learned that her boyfriend is positive for the virus. Lynn tells Jon about her discovery when they are coincidentally introduced during a Thanksgiving vacation back to LaCrosse. When Jon goes in search of this successful clue, he seems to uncover a plot to keep the cure secret.

In a medical-thriller set in the 1980s in an alternative history, peppered with clues, coincidences and misperceptions, a strange old house with secret rooms becomes the site for an assassin's attack, an AIDS counselor who's been teaching his group Buddhist and New Age healing principles of relaxation and acceptance, becomes suspected himself of murder. In a final confrontation, Jon's spiritual principles are challenged when he's forced to answer the problem of evil in game of wits with the Director of the Liberty Bell Foundation. The hero's example of enlightened attitude, even in the face of personal loss, so affects the Director's righteousness that, it seems, the cure is released.

In the end, the heroes triumph, but it is never clear if the plot they suspected has ever really existed, but the search and the confrontation with suffering and evil have changed them all and taught them the secret of finding miracles.

Interesting as historical documentation of a time when AIDS was fraught with paranoia and miracles were the only hope and still relevant today as a parable about overcoming evil and healing oneself of fear.