The year is 1992. A coffee-fueled killing spree on Rodeo Drive and radical DECAF activists have caused the federal government to do the unthinkable: ban coffee. When the anti-coffee law goes into effect, Seattle café owner Samantha Simms casts her lot with mystery man Maj. Milton Xavier and flies south to join the widow of Juan Valdez in an effort to keep the caffeine flowing. Meanwhile in America, TV celebrity/Surgeon General Dr. Bill and the fanatical leader of DECAF go to extreme measures to keep coffee illegal. A coffee-loving assistant attorney general reluctantly enforces the law, while her brother, just released from prison, is pressured by the mob to push coffee in the inner cities.
In Colombia, Samantha's coffee-running operation is also threatened by the mob until she secures funding from a Saudi prince with a Bill and Ted fixation, and Maj. Xavier leads a secret pro-democracy force called the Zitis to help Juanita Valdez get elected despite the best efforts of the CIA. In America, the the Olympic basketball Dream Team dies from poison-laced coffee just before the Republican National Convention, a crime eventually linked to a grocery magnate who is also the President’s father. The scandal causes the Brew candidate for president — the U.S. Senator formerly married to Samantha — to surge ahead in the polls. But will he be elected in time to prevent the President's diversionary tactic of starting a coffee war with Colombia?
THE YEAR COFEE WAS ILLEGAL
THE YEAR COFFEE WAS ILLEGAL is a funny, fast-paced political satire that answers the unthinkable question, "What if coffee was suddenly declared illegal in America?" Set in America and Colombia, THE YEAR COFFEE WAS ILLEGAL shows just how crazy the nation becomes when a "just say no" philosophy and Prohibition tactics are applied to America's favorite beverage.
In March, The Write Launch selected an excerpt from the novel to be featured on their website:
But perhaps the best place to start the story of the War on Coffee is that critical turning point in recent American history, the 1981 assassination of President Ronald Reagan. How would the country have turned out if Reagan had survived the bullet fired by the crazed John Hinckley. Jr.? Only the fiction writers would know. But there can be no doubt Reagan’s untimely death set off the tumultuous decade to follow.
Reagan’s vice president, George Bush, was in Fort Worth, Texas, on a joint visit with First Lady Nancy Reagan for the funeral of film star Ginger Rogers. Informed of the tragedy by the Secret Service, they were both taken to the airport to fly to Washington. The agents also shared their concern about Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had immediately declared, “I am in control here,” when told that Bush was out of town. They recommended that Bush pick a vice president himself to put Haig further down the line of succession than he was already (which, in reality, was after the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate).
And so, in an eerie echo of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the grieving First Lady looked on as a federal judge swore in the Vice President as president on the plane. But, in a modern twist, the judge then turned to the First Lady to swear her in as the new Vice President.
“It’s what Ronnie would have wanted,” she said between sobs. Then turning to Bush, she told him, “You’ll be safe now, George. Al would never risk having a woman President, especially me.”