"UPROOTED" - A retired and semi-reclusive former journalist who strings for a local weekly newspaper is urged by a woman activist who brings meals to rural homebound elderly to help her expose degrading conditions some live in. Inspired, he also helps spawn a probe into mental patient treatment when a state psychiatric center is downsized. The activist's request involves him and his sculptor wife in investigations that lead to threats, injury, local political corruption, personal conflict, encounters with a diabolical game-player, international travel, a reunion with a painful past and a jolting choice about his future. The narrative also engages the lives of others that the key characters encounter in separate episodes, offering a tapestry that deepens and plays off central themes of the book, including the rich changeable lives of those who are aged and how new opportunities offer opportunities for change.