Killer of Presidents

About the Book

“Killer of Presidents” is about Matt Harris, the splendid young man every American mother wants her daughter to marry - - every mother, that is except the mother of the bright and yummy Peg DeWitt.

Matt is the sales manager of a division of a giant textile corporation. His troubles begin when the president of his division is murdered and Matt, smeared head to foot with the dead man’s blood, is the prime - - as in the only - - suspect.

A replacement president is appointed and he, too, is murdered. Nobody liked him anyway but that doesn’t matter any more, the guy is dead. It matters not that the zing of indictable proof is not quite yet in hand, everyone accepts Matt’s guilt as fact.

Well, not quite everyone: Peg opened the box and looked at the ring and looked at Matt and he told her: “You don’t have to take it. If you do, you don’t have to wear it. It could be embarrassing, engaged to me. I’d understand."

“You really would.” She said. She gave me back the ring. But she gave her left hand, too, fingers splayed. “Put it on,” she whispered.

He did.

“Now you’re supposed to kiss me.” She said.

He did that, too.

“I won’t be embarrassed; I’m proud.”

It was a warm morning for November. The sun was uncluttered and a light breeze shattered the surface of the pond into flickering daytime stars. They walked hand in hand through the now dormant garden and Matt looked across the lawn back at the house and thought that this was the start of a happy dynasty, right here and now, Peg and himself and this would be the ancestral home and children and grandchildren would come back year after year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and turkey and skating on the pond. Ant at what he thought were decent intervals he pulled her close and kissed her and wondered how strongly she believed in his innocence: a hundred percent? Ninety five percent? Ninety?

He hoped it wasn’t less than eighty.

So this leaves only the police - - and Peg’s mother and father and brother - - and it leaves everybody else who reads the paper and watches TV and the people at the office - - and it leaves especially the corporate CEO - - it leaves them all certain that Matt is guilty as hell. So what now? Go someplace else? Get a new job? Start over?

Matt updated his resume and took steps to offer it discretely through the usual channels. The first recruiter he talked to got no further than his name before he asked a question: “Are you the same Matthew Harris who’s been in the news with the police for all those murders?”

“Only two murders.”

“I guess you’re right; two. Only two. Presidents. You only kill presidents?”

“I don’t kill anybody. I didn’t kill those two.”

“I’m sorry, of course you didn’t. The man looked at Matt, slid his eyes across the resume, dropped it on his desk, and said without enthusiasm: “You still working, still got your job?”

“It says so there. Yes.”

“Why do you want to leave?”

“I just want to.”

“Who’d hire you? I mean - - well, no offense. But you’re lucky you’ve got a job. I guess you know the textile business. I guess you do have a pretty good future. Or had one before all this. But now, well… Look, you want me to be honest, right? What president of what company would want to hire you knowing what happened to the last two presidents you worked for?”

Killer of Presidents provides mystery, action, suspense, an on-again-off-again romance between two very likeable people and more than you minimum daily requirement of bust-out laughter. With clever writing, attractive characters and a steadily intensifying plot, this fast moving novel demonstrates that fiction done right can come across entertainingly as an upgraded version of the truth, a story to read, to enjoy, then read and enjoy again.

About the Author

Mike Cohen was born in Boston, graduated from college (Colby) in Maine, dug gold in California, shot at (and was shot at by) Nazis in Normandy, Brittany, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. Wounded, he spent 14 months in Army hospitals, celebrating his ultimate release by marrying and carrying off a keepsake Army nurse. He wrote a novel, “The Bright Young Man”, which was published by Lippincott and condensed in Redbook. He wrote short stories that he sold to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and others. His continuing writings recall the past – with embellishments – remolding “it nearer to the heart’s desire”.