Ill Prepared

by Bob Cook

Overview

In 1967 Rob Hanks, a recent college grad, accepts a counselor position in an isolated work camp for serious delinquent offenders. Within a few days he is personally challenged like he had never been before, as there was little in college that had prepared him for direct, in-your-face, confrontation. Rob learns that he is replacing another guy who had been broken down both physically and mentally by thugs who truly enjoyed watching the man cry. Luckily he is partnered with Jack, a cross eyed, ex-paratrooper, who knows the ropes. Together they wade into the circus, dealing with suicide, pheasants, sex, trout, violence and bears. As Rob struggles to find his footing, he takes a few missteps along the way which threaten his marriage and his traditional values.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479143573
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	11/29/2012
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

The author graduated from Florida Presbyterian College, now Eckerd College, in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a degree in Sociology. He began his career as a counselor in a program for serious and habitual juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Florida in the late 1960's and made a career with the State of Florida in all manner of children and youth programs including delinquency, child abuse and neglect investigations, protective services, foster care, adoptions, domestic violence, and subsidized day care. When he retired from the state, he was serving as the program manager, responsible for almost all of these programs in the panhandle of Florida.

The author will tell you that his head is full of stories from those years. His first book, A Different Kind of Killer, is a compilation of short stories. The title story is a very humorous account of friends coming together to support one of their own who must deal with a serious illness. His second book, Some People Need Killing, is a tribute to Child Abuse Investigators, the men and women who make the first response to child abuse and neglect calls. Cops and social workers get intertwined in more ways than one, dealing with child abuse and murder in a fast paced story set in Pensacola, Florida. A stand alone sequel entitled Some Boys Never Become Men, follows the same characters into even more merry making and mayhem as the story continues. The author provides a great deal of action, humor, and pathos to keep the pages turning. His fourth book, Ill Prepared, is a coming of age story that loosely follows the adventures of the author as he finally learns of the real world in Pennsylvania at a rural forestry camp for serious delinquents. Life lessons are learned through marriage, friendships, and the rollicking, sometimes dangerous, world of the work camp.
He is the father of two adult children and six grandchildren. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have lived in Pensacola since 1976.