Cranberry Red: A Novel - Book

Cranberry Red: A Novel is the fourth novel in Jerry Apps’s Ames County series. Portraying the twenty-first century challenges of agriculture, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present. As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County and is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University. This for-profit institution has developed Cranberry Red, a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market? When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben’s honesty get him fired while putting his community at risk? Published by University of Wisconsin Press. Cloth, 324 pages, 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 in.Other titles in the Ames County series: The Travels of increase Joseph, In a Pickle and Blue Shadows Farm.