Beach City, Fl.

About the Book

Beach City, Florida is a pleasant town located on the Gulf of Mexico. There, the majority of the population is long past the beginning of their retirement years. The only young people are the ones that provide the services for the older generation. This environment produces many types of retirement communities. Holly Acres is a self contained, full service retirement community, with access to the Gulf of Mexico. This makes Holly Acres a very desirable, albeit, fairly expensive place, which caters to the independent residents, as well as those that use the Assisted Living facilities. One September day a K9 unit with Sheriff Deputy Karen Overholt at the wheel and Napoleon her canine companion sitting in the rear seat of her cruiser, were called to Holly Acres. The reason for the call to the Sheriff was that a Mr. Smythe, an independent living resident had been reported as missing. Karen was dispatched for several reasons. She and Napoleon had done a search for another resident, a few months earlier and had been successful in locating the particular lady. Another reason for Karen winding up with this search was the fact that her parents, retired judge Overholt and his wife had bought into a villa at Holly Acres. The Overholts, one of the few independent couples at the facility, were both very active outside Holly Acres. The Judge, still owning a boat, tied it up at the Holy Acres Marina. He also belonged to the Coast Guard Auxiliary. After a hurricane brushed past Beach City, he and a crew were out on the water checking for harmful debris, when they stumble across a body. To no ones surprise the body was identified as that of Mr. Smythe. It was also determined that Mr. Smythe was murdered. With various competing law enforcement agencies trying to solve the murder, it very shortly became a competition between the County Sheriff and the City police. It also upset the normal routine at Holly Acres. While investigating on his own, Judge Overholt had the misfortune to discover two other murders at the Holly Acres Marina, which seemed to have a connection to the first murder. In conjunction with the local Sheriff a task force was created to get to the bottom of these murders. With the help of the Judge they were pretty sure that they had the proof necessary to solve the murders, when the boat, which could lead them to the mastermind behind these murders, went up in flames. Both the Judge and Karen watched the inferno and could not believe that all their efforts had been in vain. With the golden glow of the fire behind, they looked at each other. No words were uttered, no tears were shed. Instead they both posed the same silent question. How much had each of them contributed to this disaster?

About the Author

Chris Blunt, an octogenarian, has written a number of books, all unpublished. He also has written a few short stories, one of which even made it into print. He and his wife, almost ready to celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary, live in a FULL SERVICE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY in Southwest Florida. Chris felt that, after all these years, one of his stories deserved to be published. Ergo “BEACH CITY, Fl.”