The Tooth Fairy.

• Author: LaCheen, Steve

The Tooth Fairy

By Jacob P. Hart

Question: Who could write a novel in which a union grievance hearing and arbitration proceeding are the centerpieces of a story that will hold your interest from first line to last, whether you know anything, or even care, about labor/management relations?

Answer: The Honorable Jacob S. Hart, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, also known as Jake Hart.

Hart is a writer of demonstrated skill, with a fine ear for what is humor for the reader, and what passes for humor in the characters whose lives, fortunes, and sacred honor are played out in just the right amount of detail in the pages of his novel.

In the business and labor worlds of Lancaster, PA, Harry Greene and Peter Werner appear to be at the very top of their games. Greene owns the largest factory in the county. Werner runs the toughest Teamster Local. But Greene has been living a terrible nightmare for the past 10 years, while Werner, on many days, has to force himself to go to work.

The Tooth Fairy tells the story of these two men, drawn together by a senseless prank gone awry. A drunken ride on a Harley by a member of Werner's union through the inside of Greene's factory leaves a beloved watchman fighting for his life. At the same time, it leaves Greene face-to-face with his nightmare, and Werner face-to-face with his own moral dilemma.

To tell anything more of the plot would spoil part of the enjoyment of the story, not because it would reveal a surprise ending, but because it might spoil the enjoyment of being surprised that some chapters, rather than providing what might be expected from what went before, provide a totally logical, but equally unanticipated, change of direction.

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