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Community Corner

Local Mystery Author at Copperfield's San Rafael Sat 1 - 4

Meet a New, Local Mystery Writer at Copperfield’s Books in San Rafael Saturday Afternoon, May 31 2 - 6.

Coyote Point Casino - A light-hearted adventure/mystery centered around Indian Casinos and Local Politics. Meet the author 2 – 6 at Copperfield’s Books, 850 4th St, San Rafael.

 

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Novato resident Rick Zalon wrote an adventure/mystery on Indian gaming, identity politics, celebrity culture, and the decline of the American University. The book is loosely based on the political and greed back stories around the development of the Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park, Zalon insists, however, that all characters appearing in his book are fictitious, and that any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

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Coyote Point Casino (published by Christopher Matthews Publishing of Bozeman, Montana) is the story of Jim McBride, a feckless adjunct professor who, faced with the elimination of his position, conveniently rediscovers his tribal ancestry and secures an endowed chair in his university's Native American Studies program. With the encouragement of the program's director Billy Littlefeather, a Brooklyn-born former TV western bit player, McBride becomes entangled in efforts to restore federal recognition for his tribe so that it can act as a front for shady casino developers.

 

In the process, Jim gets mired in local and academic politics, involved with a faded child star latching onto trendy causes in an effort to resurrect her career, at odds with conflicted environmental activists on both sides of the issue, and has to deal with the consequences of a significant archeological find that threatens to derail the entire enterprise.

 

Mr. Zalon, a practicing CPA, first developed an interest in this story while teaching (as a part-time adjunct) in a progressive “green” MBA program at the now-defunct New College of California in Santa Rosa, where he encountered many of the controversies, contradictions, passions and unique personality types/disorders portrayed in Coyote Point Casino. Trained as a journalist in the US Air Force during the Vietnam era (he served as a public affairs representative and TV network liaison during the last two Apollo missions), Zalon worked as a financial executive in Silicon Valley, wrote the original business plan for Office Club (now Office Depot), consulted for a number of joint-venture companies in China, and survived stage IV lymphoma. He currently maintains a small tax and consulting practice, coaches CPA exam candidates and teaches part time at Dominican University’s more conventional School of Business and Leadership in San Rafael.

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