Photo Courtesy of Howard Gershkowitz

In “Not on My Watch,” a pair of former high school classmates reunite 15 years post-graduation. Steven was the class geek and valedictorian while Donna was the overweight girl that everyone loved to make fun of.

Now working as a nurse at an Arizona hospital, Donna — who has since lost a lot of weight — is looking to fend off a takeover attempt by a ruthless conglomerate out of Boston and enlists Steven’s help, seeing it as an opportunity to find love and romance with the stockbroker while simultaneously battling the forces of corruption.

In turn, Steven enlists the assistance of his best friend — acquisitions specialist Bill Stevens — in the fight. They soon discover that C&C and Associates — the Boston powerhouse that is building a medical empire — is perpetrating a deliberate Medicare fraud scheme in their facilities. Things turn dicey when they learn that Donna’s ex-husband, Dr. Harry Steinham, is the main hatchet man for the corporation.

Bill and his wife Laura, who is a patient at SCM in Scottsdale, are convinced that Donna is only using Steven in order to protect her job and rescue the hospital from the clutches of her ex-husband’s company. Steven, however, is so in love — or overcome with lust — that he cannot see straight. He is convinced that Donna is sincere and that they will ride off into the sunset together.

Despite his apprehensions about Donna’s motives, Bill uses his connections — including a mysterious computer hacker named Jeremy — to break into C&C’s computers and gather evidence. They decide to risk it all by running a con-game on Dr. Steinham in order to trap him into turning state’s evidence. However, at the last minute, Dr. Steinham is abducted by the corporation’s shady director of security, Carlos Ortega, and their plans are derailed.

A chase ensues, taking Steven and Jeremy to the Cayman Islands in order to track them down and save the day, preventing them from absconding with the ill-gotten gains and bringing C&C down with it.

Trouble walked in wearing high heels and attitude.

Shoulder-length brown hair framed her smooth, high cheek bones. Stopping well shy of the register, she scanned the tables as if looking for someone to buy her a drink. When her eyes caught mine, they lingered a second too long. A half-smile creased her lips, disappearing so quickly I was unsure I saw it at all. Strolling causually to the periodicals rack, she pick up a Vogue and began browsing.

I sipped my coffee and tried refocusing on the Journal article in front of me, but there’d been something unsettling in her glance. Was I supposed to respond? Offer to wait in line so she wouldn’t have to? If this were a bar, with its clear, unspoken rules, the choice would be easy. I was unaware of such protocols at Starbucks however, especially ones located inside a bookstore on a raisy, September afternoon.

I folded the paper and laid it down. Her dark walnut-brown eyes stayed glued to whatever page she’d turned to, her long lashes barely blinking. She wore a white silk blouse and dark-blue knee-length skirt which showcased her slim figure and shapely legs.

Without warning, she looked up and our eyes met once more. Flashing another quick, half smile, she replaced the magazine in its rack and strode past me, the scent of Chanel mingling with the soothing aromas of cappuccinos and lattes. I watched, transfixed, as she entered the bookstore, ambling down the nutrition aisle, fingers lightly caressing the shelves.

Suddenly disinterested in the slowdown in international gold production or the market turmoil due to the aftermath of the nationwide shutdown, I followed her. There was something familar in her smile, but what? Michelle never smiled at me like that. Nor Helen. Not any of the half-dozen others since the divorce.

“Not on My Watch” by Howard Gershkowitz

The thriller was written by Chandler resident Howard Gershkowitz. The author was born and raised in New York before arriving in Arizona with his wife of 43 years, Lisa, 41 years ago. Maintaining a journal for most of his life, he has accumulated a significant amount of material to write about. To date, he has published a dozen short stories, a poetry chapbook titled “Observations” and two novels.

Gershkowitz is also a financial advisor — a role that he has had for the past 37 years. His son, Robert, joined him at his firm seven years ago. Additionally, he has served as a docent for various Holocaust projects — including the traveling Ann Frank exhibit. He and his wife are also sports fans. Possessing a love to travel, their bucket list includes visiting all of the baseball stadiums around the country as they follow the Arizona Diamondbacks from city to city.

Images Arizona caught up with Gershkowitz to ask him a few questions about “Not on My Watch” — the latest selection in its summer book club.

From where did you receive your inspiration for this book?
As a financial advisor and stockbroker, I study the markets and current trends. I happened across an article in a national newspaper about a hospital in New Jersey that was indicted on Medicare fraud. I looked a little further and discovered that institutional fraud — in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year — was not uncommon.

One of the main ways a hospital could defraud both patients and Medicare is by prescribing unnecessary procedures, such as heart stents. They are easy to do, usually with few complications, and they pay well. Some hospitals in retirement areas were prescribing this procedure to anyone on Medicare, whether they needed it or not. That inspired me to write about it and let people know what was going on.

Aside from that initial inspiration, were there any other experiences from your life that played a part in the setting, characters or trajectory of the plot?
The characters were a mix of people I had known throughout my life. Donna, the nurse in the book, was inspired by my first crush in high school. Steven’s character — and his story — very loosely resemble my own, though I changed many facts to fit the plot. The fact that he is a broker, like me, and partners with his M&A friend is, similarly, close to reality.

What themes did you aspire to tackle with this particular work? Did any other themes reveal themselves to you during the writing process?
There were two themes in the book. The first one, of course, is the ease with which large corporations — medical or otherwise — can get away with massive fraud. While many are caught, I fear many more manage to get away with it unnoticed. The second theme had to do with finding someone to love. So often, divorce sours people on finding the right person to spend their lives with, and both Steven and Donna had been disappointed in love and marriage. Getting them together in a fictional setting was a lot of fun.

What or how are you hoping your book makes readers feel? What other takeaways do you hope they have?
I like my books — and short stories and poetry — to leave people feeling satisfied that the bad guy or gal got what was coming to them, and the protagonist — who had to overcome many obstacles and roadblocks to foil the antagonist — was rewarded for his efforts. I want people to have hope that they can overcome their own shortcomings and that justice ultimately does prevail.

What are some of your own takeaways? Specifically, did your characters teach you anything?
This book started out as a short story for a class I was taking at Scottsdale Community College. It was strictly a love story between Steven and Donna, but I got such great critiques afterward that I decided to expand it into a novel. This was actually the first novel I wrote, so it was certainly a learning experience, especially after it was rejected over and over by publishers.

I ultimately wrote a second novel — “The Operator” — and had it professionally edited. It was accepted for publication and came out in 2018. I then went back to the first book and discovered why it never got accepted by publishers: It was awful! It was quite a shock to discover how bad it really was in the light of my second book. I decided to re-write it from start to finish, had it professionally edited again, and it was thankfully accepted for publication. That was some learning curve!

“Not on My Watch” was published in 2021 by All Things That Matter Press and is currently available in both print and ebook on Amazon and on the author’s website.

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