Bare Essentials

About the Book

This epic drama opens in Boulder, Colorado, at the home of Oxford-educated Robert Dalton, an internationally known chemistry professor. His houseguest is Jozef Bardowski, head of the analytical laboratory of Warsaw’s Nuclear Energy Institute. Knowing that Dalton, accompanied by his Polish-born wife, Helena, will shortly embark upon a year’s sabbatical at the University of Vienna, Bardowski expresses his fears that someone is introducing mind-altering drugs into Poland’s natural gas to subdue the Polish people. To present the matter to the United Nations, he asks Dalton to analyze gas samples to be smuggled from Warsaw into the Austrian capital. Dalton agrees, unaware that by doing so, he will subject both himself and Helena to acts of terror, including an attempt on his own life.

About the Author

THE AUTHORS The late Sylvia Tascher Navratil was a very prolific writer, producing three other novels, several books for children, two technical books, and many musical scores and poems. Her talent for creative writing was inherited from her parents, both of whom were respected authors. More about Sylvia can be found in The Bear Hug, published by Xlibris. Dr. James D. Navratil was educated as an analytical chemist at the University of Colorado and is now professor emeritus of environmental engineering and earth sciences at Clemson University. His other teaching experiences include serving as a chemical training officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, teaching general chemistry at the University of Colorado, and teaching chemical engineering and extractive metallurgy subjects at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where he also served as head of the Department of Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy. Dr. Navratil earned numerous honors, including a Dow Chemical Scholarship, the annual award of the Colorado Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Rockwell International Engineer of the Year, two IR-100 awards, and three society fellowships. He was a member of the IAEA team awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Navratil has four patents to his credit and has given more than 450 presentations, including lectures in more than one hundred countries. He has coedited or coauthored 19 books, published more than 250 scientific publications, and has served on the editorial boards of over a dozen journals.