Welcome to the website of author Richard Sanders Polin
Millicent DeGroenfeld Rice
Melvin “the Troll” Horgan—lead singer and lyricist of the grunge band Billy Goat’s Gruff; self-loathing, angry little gargoyle, and a spiritually and literally impotent loser; a musician devoid of talent and artistry—finally gets his big break after one fleeting burst of creativity while squatting in the bathroom of a Popeye’s restaurant just outside of Washington, D.C. Knowing his career is in freefall, Melvin desperately wrenches together a song for his next album—his last shot at success—based on a newspaper story about a stripper’s untimely death. If the album flops, it could be back on the streets again. Curiously, the song, “Millicent DeGroenfeld Rice,” catapults Melvin and his band into fame—not due to its quality, but because of a chilling phenomenon: during each live performance of this song, a random audience member dies.
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The growing fascination with the victims and the real-life story of Millicent DeGroenfeld Rice draws Melvin, an FBI agent, and a corporate lawyer into separate quests to either seek, reject, or ignore the truth behind the song’s deadly effect. How can one song born of desperation kill a member of the audience every time it’s played live? Is it just a bizarre coincidence, or is something more sinister at play?
Richard Sanders Polin
Richard Polin is a 1987 graduate of Harvard University and a 1991 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Despite his busy career as a neurosurgeon and having authored numerous papers, articles, and book chapters, as well as giving many talks all over the world, he has always maintained a passion for writing fiction and a love of modern alternative/grunge music and attending concerts. Like his other works, this novel was crafted in spare moments between clinic patients and surgeries, then written down thirty minutes a night over the course of many years. Richard continues to practice neurosurgery in Portland, Oregon. With his children now graduated, he lives with a six-year-old Aussiedoodle.
