The King of Trash

The plague of homelessness runs through it like a pulsing vein. There is murder—and bodies galore. There is unhesitating genocide. There is an escape from certain death that will haunt you. And yet The King of Trash is a story of tenderness, of ethical struggle, and of deeply bonded humanity. In his latest novel—and his first to move beyond the highly successful Mogi Franklin middle-reader mysteries—author Don Willerton intertwines modern-day themes of transcendent importance through a unique and intriguing tale of mystery, adventure, and courage. Early readers have sometimes had nightmares, but yet The King of Trash is ultimately redeemed by its heart. It begins with a newspaper reporter setting out to interview a former school mate who’s now become one of the world greatest scientists—and one of its richest men. Before long, though, we are enmeshed in a web of awful and expedient “facts” building to a twenty-first-century morality tale in which no one can escape the hard and bitter decisions of the “real” world. And yet at the end, we learn, is the one central truth, the only remnant left to sustain Willerton’s fascinating and vivid characters—and all the rest of us alive on Earth as well.