A nirreverent, romantic comedy with an animal medical mystery set in veterinary school. The best TV analogue for the tone and story is a cross between “M*A*S*H” and “ER.”    Millions dream of veterinary school, few make it in. The chosen discover an irreverent, romantically- charged, academic gauntlet that brings out the best and worst that humans can be. An Animal Life: The Beginning was inspired by the real-life adventures of four veterinary school classmates. This first book in the series opens as Dr. Violet Marie Green (a beautiful zoo vet extraordinaire) is darting a giraffe from the open cockpit of a helicopter. As the first veterinarian at the world’s largest zoo, Violet should be ecstatic but her self-medicated gastric ulcer warns that all is not right in The Peaceable Kingdom. Almost immediately a mysterious and invariably fatal neurological disease emerges. Horses, zebra, flamingoes, crows and even people are dropping dead all around the zoo. With her goofy-sweet and brilliant friend, Stan the Path Man, she and her vet students solve the case and reveal that the bully of a lead animal keeper (with obvious designs to bed Violet) has been in cahoots with a sport-hunting ranch in Texas (you won’t believe what he did…).