Susan R. Sloan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Susan R Sloan

Susan R. Sloan was a writer from Bainbridge Island, Washington. She was known as an animal activist, operating Furrytown Farm, an animal rescue center. Ms. Sloan was also the co-author, with her good friend Sally Sondheim, of several cookbooks. Ms. Sloan passed away at the age of 82 at her home in Sequim, Washington.

Born in New York, Ms. Sloan was educated on the east coast. She lived in California for fifteen years before moving to Washington state. Before her highly successful career as an author she was a practicing prosecuting attorney. Her novels have all explored the effectiveness of the law in society and how far justice can be achieved. Her novels are stories told of social issues such as bigotry, the abortion controversy, and equality in the law.

Guilt by Association was Ms. Sloan’s first novel. They story is about the date rape in New York City’s Central Park of Karen Kern, a young college student perpetrated by a Harvard Law student she met at a Christmas Party.

The young man comes from a rich, powerful family and Karen’s fiancé, her family, and the police push her to drop it, essentially saying she provoked the assault, as it went in those days. The crime committed in 1962, was in a time when “acquaintance rape” aka “date rape” was essentially an unknown concept and was rarely ever prosecuted.

Over time Karen is able to gradually carve a professional life for herself but has stopped all romantic attachments. Karen matures over the years but the rape has its permanent effect on her in every aspect of her life. When Robert Willmont, the rapist, has Presidential political aspirations. Karen is spurred to action to get justice. Evolving social conditions, thirty years after, makes it possible for her to bring the event out in open.

Through this story we see the arc of changes in the victim’s life and the culture of the times. She suffers heavy consequences, legally and personally, with the instigation of the investigation of her rape. In the process she is able to change from victim to victor with a satisfying ending.

Ms. Sloan again leans into social issues and this time, inspired by a true story of the danger of bigotry, the theme plays out in frightening ways. An Isolated Incident is the story about a brutal murder of a teenage girl, the island citizens’ anger and demand for swift justice, and how that is irrelevant of the facts. Bigotry of the worst kind leads to vigilante justice and violence is their chosen punishment.

The first homicide in recorded history on this small island, just a short ferry ride from Seattle, has everyone hysterical. The local law enforcement, police chief Ruben Martinez, a product of the barrios of Los Angeles, and his smart detective, Ginger Earley, have zero leads.

The community pressure on the two is intense. When a newspaper reporter digs up unflattering evidence in Jerry Frankel’s past, Ginger decides to focus on him as her primary suspect. She isn’t motivated so much by wanting to solve this horrible crime as she wanting to save Ruben’s career, the man she is in love with.

Soon everyone is calling for the immediate arrest of the new high school history teacher, Jerry Frankel, who is an outspoken Jewish man from New York, and new to the Pacific Northwest island community. Ginger is surprised when the townspeople immediately blame Frankel because he is Jewish and begin to take matters violently into their own hands.

The mob clamors for an immediate arrest as opposed to the accurate and necessary ability of the law to dispense appropriate truth in justice.

Ms. Sloan’s novel, Act of God turns to the difficult and controversial social issue of abortion. When hundreds of staff and patients are killed and maimed when a bomb blows up a women’s health clinic, the issue of terrorism and its traumatic reverberations are examined in this tense and timely story.

A suspect is found and arrested. He seems the most likely but is he the perpetrator of this violent crime? Dana McAuliffe, the unlucky attorney assigned to defend Lt. Corey Hamlin, is in the unenviable and seemingly impossible position of trying to get a fair trail. He gives the appearance of being undeniably guilty but she has her doubts.

The mind-set of a radical thinker along with the issue of the legal system’s ability to gauge the truth is explored in the novel that has stood the test of time. Explosive and provocative, this story takes a sharp look at both sides of the abortion debate. Hill House, dubbed an abortion clinic by the media, is primarily a day-care center and counseling center for those who suffer domestic abuse and need homeless support. Less of an abortion clinic it is primarily a maternity ward.

Those who wish to pull the focus to pro-life extremes and less on abortion rights try to shift the focus of the trial’s outcome to strengthen their causes. Dana is not convinced the case against Lt. Hamlin is tight and thinks he is likely innocent. The trial becomes less about his guilt and more about the issue of abortion vs. right-to-life. Dana has to find the real bad actor to save her client from the electric chair.