A Slightly Tainted Hero

Dave Lockwood is an accountant. He’s also just turned sixty and he’s feeling old—mainly in body, rather than mind. And then there’s Irene Blanchard, his office manager. She’s about twenty years younger than Dave, which is about the age his mind seems to think he is, as it valiantly labours to adjust to a ‘maturing’ bod. Which is why, one evening as he escorts Irene down to the parking lot below one of Edmonton’s downtown sky scrapers he unwisely confronts a mugger, whom he quickly discovers is armed. Blind panic follows as shots ring out, and Dave becomes an overnight hero; in fact, he’s shocked to find that he’s a successful, wounded, nationally known hero. But instant fame has its drawbacks as Dave’s pasts sins slowly emerge from behind a long closed closet door. Louise, his wife of thirty six years, is not pleased. Neither, it seems, is anyone else as the fallout spreads: his partners at work, the police, the mugger’s family, and even Dave himself. A Slightly Tainted Hero takes an often humorous, sometimes thoughtful look at the bittersweet irony when the good things in life turn out, as they often do, to be ‘Slightly Tainted’. Or, as Dave likes to put it: “Every silver lining has a cloud!”