This fast paced novel, The Tarnished Image, by Louis Sandman, a new author, is about the problem of bullying in the schools and the indifferent attitude that the parents of the students show. Mordecai Greenspan, an Orthodox Jewish High School senior is mercilessly bothered by the other students. A black surgeon, Dr. Saunders, and his family move into the new house across the street from the Greenspans. Mordecai and their son, Jimmy, become best of friends. The other neighbors resent the idea of a black family living in their midst and display a hostile attitude toward them. Due to health reasons, Mordecai attends a college in Southern Florida, where his roommates mercilessly torment him. When he refuses to help the football quarterback cheat on an exam, he is taken to a wood south of Miami by his roommates and their friends and beaten unconscious and left to die. Fortunately he is rescued by a Boy Scout troop returning from a hike and taken to a hospital.