Greed and opportunity become a volatile mix in retired attorney Peter Alpert's novel "The Vanishing Chemist."

Chemist Madison Bellamy first contacts attorney Mark Conover when he faces a $12 million judgement for allegedly polluting Colorado waterways with his platinum refinery. Conover gets the judgment overturned, but he hears from Bellamy again when the eccentric chemist continues his unscrupulous practices in Arizona.

That won't be the last contact. Bellamy's greed leads him into high-stakes finance deals and takes him around the world in pursuit of cash. Getting governmental...

The town of Eagleton is a rural community nestled in Colorado. The people who call the town home, twelve thousand in all, are for the most part plain-spoken and hard-working.

George Schmidt is one such townsperson. He spends most of his time eking out a modest existence on the farm he inherited from his father. His social life consists of a morning coffee in town. He doesn't have time for much besides farming. But that's all about to change.

When George is driving one morning, he hits a section of damaged road that causes him to lose control of his pickup truck. He is...