murder and mystery in your hometown
Donna Taylor showed up in the middle of Jack Beer’s mid-morning butter tart/coffee break to insist the reluctant investigator look for her missing brother. His new client is an enigmatic woman with dark secrets… secrets that, once uncovered, may be key to solving the case. Along the way, Jack flushes out red herrings, skirts around false trails and navigates through trickery and deception — all in a day’s work for a gritty rural P.I. who doesn’t know the meaning of the word, ‘quit.’
While vacationing on the Mayan Riviera with his girlfriend Sheila, Jack bumps into Trout Michaels, a loud-mouthed, trouble-making Florida cop.
Back home, Jack forgets all about Michaels until six months later he shows up looking for help.
Meanwhile, Jack is asked to dig into a local bank robbery only to discover that crime and Trout Michael’s cross-border case are connected. Which makes no sense.
Then again it’s hard to blame Jack for his confusion given that the robbery suspects borrowed their brains from the Three Stooges.
Full-time coffee shop owner and part-time private investigator Jack Beer’s new client turns out to be a ghost from his own shameful past, a ghost packing more trouble than his hourly rate can cover. Tripping over dirty business deals and vicious bike gangs, dodging bullets, blows and a woman scorned, Jack eventually falls through a tangle of deceit and uncovers the deadly secrets that lurk beneath the surface of small-town Grand Bend.
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Grand Bend coffee shop owner and part-time private eye Jack Beer reluctantly accompanies his girlfriend Sheila to the annual Elvis festival in Collingwood Ontario. While there, he solves a kidnapping, only to find himself dragged into a murder investigation. Suspicion falls on the victim’s wife, Elvis wannabes, local toughs, and the town’s movers and shakers, but the problem is, they’re all fakeout artists. And Jack looks like he’s next on the hit list. Collingwood Fakeout is the second Jack Beer murder-mystery.
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Charlie, a WWII vet, has hired part-time private detective/Grand Bend coffee shop owner Jack Beer to find his missing grandson, a crude oil geologist. But before Jack can get started, an associate also turns up missing. Are these men whistleblowers run afoul of fraudsters in the cut-throat world of oil exploration? Or have they themselves run off with the spoils of skullduggery?
And what do biker gangs and the Russian mafia have to do with Jack’s investigation? Or the sociopath who is trying to kill Jack’s friend, Tiny Cole?
Overwhelmed, out-gunned and tripping over himself as usual, Jack teams with girlfriend Sheila to save his friend and close the case, upsetting police departments and muckymucks along the way.
Brittany, a spike-haired cutie with a smart-ass attitude, shows up on Jack’s doorstep.
Her problem: the cops suspect her mother of attempted murder.
The surprise: Brittany’s mother and Jack are cousins.
Jack’s problem: decades ago, he disowned his family and he’d rather not take them back, at least not until Jack’s girlfriend Sheila cajoles him into taking the case. With each new family member he meets - shady characters, oddballs and misfits all - complications pile up and Jack is forced to look for help. He could ask an
old buddy in the police department, or his Sonny Bono lookalike uncle or even a junkyard dealer/thug/baseball card collector.
Or he could listen to Sheila’s sensible advice, loaded as it is with wisecracks.
If he gets truly desperate, Jack might have to call on his biker buddy, behemoth Tiny Cole.
In the end however, Jack will have to solve this case alone, even if he will be shattered by the fallout.
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Short stories are very satisfying to write, and I suppose a part of that is because, well, they’re short, and on a good day, a decent draft might be ready in time for supper, as long as you don’t think about the revisions ahead…
As well, stories like this can be very surprising, even for the author. Indeed, a number of these stories emerged on their own as if they’d written themselves, with me taking dictation from the characters, and any writer has to love it when that happens.
Inside these pages, you’ll find a little mystery, maybe a few laughs and even a tale or two of redemption and I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.
“Rick Hundey draws you into this collection with some well crafted characters in seemingly everyday situations - but there's always a twist. Sometimes a dark one, sometimes a funny one. He catches you off-guard and builds the tension nicely. Great new Canadian writer!”
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