The Next Right Thing: A Novel [Hardcover]

Randy Chalmers used to be a cop in the Los Angeles area. However, he lost his job for assaulting a Mexican civilian for no reason. He now is a wealthy home designer for the rich. Randy is also a recovering alcoholic and addict who is very much into Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the twelve-step program. He has seven years of sobriety. His sponsor and mentor, Terry, has just died and the police are calling it an overdose on heroin. Randy knows that Terry would never have taken any heroin after having been clean and sober for fifteen years. Randy believes that Terry was murdered and he is going to find the murderer. As he says, "Please don't tell me again how Terry's death makes sense. That he was a junkie and that's how junkies die. One day he was a poster boy for Southern California A.A. and the next day he was dead from a heroin overdose in a Santa Ana hotel. I know something happened, and I'm going to find out what."

As Randy starts to investigate this case, he has the feeling he is being followed and his house spied upon. He finds out things about Terry that trouble him. For instance, was Terry involved in the 13th step - inducting newbies in recovery houses into having sex and introducing them to pornography? Is this the Terry he knows? Randy learns that there are some weird things going on in the recovery houses such as pornography rings. "Somewhere in the middle of this was my sponsor, Terry, dead in that motel room in Santa Ana."

There is a good range of back-up characters in this novel, all fleshed out in a blunt, noirish fashion. A.A. sayings abound and the protagonists are almost all in recovery of some sort or another.

Terry is also dealing with a divorce and trying to get some legal custody of his daughter. He lost custody after he lost his job with the police force. He is trying to prove he's now a fit father. When he lost his job with the police force he was convicted of aggravated assault. Before he got into home designing he had no way to make a living. He tried to talk to Terry about his problems but "In my first year of talking to Terry, it often seemed like he was going out of his way to avoid discussing the most pressing problems in my life." However, "Terry wouldn't tolerate self-pity. Helping others was the only way to help yourself. I sometimes had a hard time keeping that in mind, but it always saved my life.

As Randy searches for Terry's killer, things become hairy and complex. Who is involved and what does the A.A. crowd have to do with it? This is a good novel that is in your face and takes you for a wild ride.

Dan Barden's The Next Right Thing is a page-turner, but not for the sake of plot. Randy Chalmers makes one bad decision after another--fully aware that he is destroying himself. The novel is about awareness--the disasters of addiction, of violence, of trying to make everything right. The novel is a quest to understand his mentor's death from a heroin overdose; and the more he understands, the angrier he gets--at Terry (his AA mentor), at himself, at the corrupt world they inhabit. Chalmers in the end finds a measure of meaning in getting past Terry's death, renewing the bond with his daughter, finding people to care about. He wishes Terry had come to the place he has at last come to: He hopes "he saw himself as a fool who had squandered a great gift. I want him miserable, fighting himself, and ashamed of his failure."

When you receive a pre-release book and it comes with what is almost a blank cover, you don't expect a lot. The title made me curious, however, so I picked it up one afternoon to see what it was about. There was no story synopsis, or anything that gave a clue what the novel might be.

It is truly a book not to be put down. I made that mistake the first day of reading...I stopped reading to watch a basketball game on tv, but my mind kept going back to the book. Luckily the Chicago Bulls were winning in a "no contest" game, so I went back to my reading area and took up the book once more.

It is a dramatic tale with several subplots that interweave with an ex-cop with a bad temper, Randy Chalmers, who is also a recovering alcoholic deep into A.A., and his friends, enemies, and associates. Randy is divorced and on terrible terms with his ex, but loves his teen aged daughter desperately and is about to lose her as his ex-wife wants to cut him out of their girl's life. His best friends are members of AA and recovering addicts or newcomers to the program and we get deep into their troubles.

The many stories are interwoven brilliantly, and you never lose touch with the main story line which is Randy's search for "the next right thing", an AA term meaning what should be next...not just "next"...but the "next best" thing.

I finshed it that same evening, and have reread it since.

A great work that deserves the highest praise. Congratulations, Mr. Barden!