The author's musings about life in a gated community residing in South Florida. Discussions about life, politics, philosophy, humor, doctors, early birds, education, and many other themes in a blog from January to August, 2011

My Mai Tai is an adventure-comedy with a touch of spice and an element of mystery involving the humorous escapades of two feisty and fun-loving couples while vacationing in Hawaii. The story is based on a number of entertaining events personally experienced by the author. It presents a series of light hearted escapades that many North Americans, who have travelled to a vacation spot in a warm setting to escape the cold of winter, will relate to. Several colourful and eccentric characters are woven into the story line and an element of mystery is introduced through one of the local characters with connections to the underworld.

A Journal of life in a South Florida senior community from August 2011 to February 2012.

“It was 0310 hours, 3:10 a.m. civilian time, when the Colonel heard someone beginning to stage a pre-dawn assault on their hideout. He had heard them and god damn it, the sorry-ass excuses for sentries that were stationed in the derelict metal sheds around the missile launch silo, should have damn-well heard them too. Instead of the sounds of scorpions and rattle snakes that he was disturbing, scurrying around in the cool sand of the abandoned shed, over his shoulders and into the pockets of his fatigues, he should be hearing the sounds of the stolen Humvees being started up. After his men finished loading them with the military small arms weapons they had been stashing in some of the larger tin sheds that still had insulation on their inner walls and doors. The men had orders to only start the Humvee’s engines after first checking to ensure that they were muffled down as much as possible, so it was possible that the NCO’s in-charge were just being overly cautious. He imagined that the authority’s SWAT teams would head west on a more-or-less straight line toward the gang’s hideout. A determination of how the authorities had zeroed-in on the location of their hideout would be evaluated and dealt with later. He figured the cops would react as most infantry units would, Plan-A, backed-up by a team or so from the GCB, and the way the colonel’s luck was running, probably one or more FBI HRT teams. However, his team would be following Plan-B, to escape and evade, fleeing due south until they hit Highway 159 and following it until they hit Highway 160. There they would split up, the Green team; in their two-wheel capable vehicles, heading northwest as fast as they could go on the road until they got to Pahrump, Nevada, and Blue team; their four-wheelers would double back and ambush the cop’s Zebra team on its right flank, following which they would break off contact and retreat into the inhospitable badlands of the Red Rock Recreation Area.”

In The Bellagio Caper, we are reintroduced to Chief Investigator Edward Augustus Fox. Foxs lover, Dr. Alicia Ho, M.D., learns that she has cancer and although pregnant, flees to China, the land of her birth. Fox resigns from the police department to follow her to China. However, he is soon declared persona non grata by the Chinese government and forced to leave China without his family when Fox refuses to accept an investigators job with the Peoples Party to spy on American tourists at the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing. After our protagonist is expelled from China, Fox moves to Las Vegas, Nevada where he accepts the most sought-after law enforcement job in Nevada, that of Chief Investigator with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. In his new position, Fox is responsible for ferreting out the criminals that perpetrate major criminal acts against the casinos, and by association, the good people of the State of Nevada. The television series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, also entices Fox into accepting a lucrative technical script advisory consultancy contract to ensure that factual forensic realism is incorporated into series scripts, which is crucial to ensure that the acclaimed CBS television series continues to hold its lead against other copycats CSI dramas.

Post-Valentine’s High: A state of euphoria experienced by cupids. This state typically occurs in late February, but extreme cases can persist into March. One euphoric cupid in March is bad enough, but three? And when they band together, no good can come of it. But…murder? Mallory’s been hired by a surprising client to prove that while these three cupids might have committed a caper or two, they weren’t up for murder.

In The Goddaughter Caper, Gina Gallo finds herself embroiled in her family's shady dealings when a body turns up at her uncle’s restaurant. But it’s just the beginning of her problems. Strange things keep happening in Steeltown. A body shows up in the trunk of Gina’s car. Another is mistakenly shipped to her cousin Nico’s new store. And then Gina and Nico stumble across a stash of empty coffins! Worse, everything mysteriously points to her own retired relatives from the Holy Cannoli Retirement Home. Gina is determined to get to the bottom of it. But she’ll have to act fast, because the police are right behind her. This is the fourth in a series featuring Gina Gallo, who wants nothing more than to run her little jewelry store but, try as she might to escape it, somehow Gina gets drawn into the family business, with hilarious consequences.

A rare and valuable jewelry piece is stolen from the Palm Beach mansion of a wealthy industrialist. The piece itself, called the Eye of the Sun, includes fragments of the famous Hope Diamond, rumored to be cursed. The industrialist asks his nephew, Greg, to find the lost treasure, with the assistance of private investigators Mike and Tina. The twisted trail of the Eye of the Sun leads up and down South Florida and over to San Juan, Puerto Rico, but finally ends at the mansion of a powerful drug dealer in the Bahamas. Greg uses his charm to befriend an attractive Cuban American named Flora, along with sly tipster Olivetti. With their help, Greg and his team steal the Eye of the Sun back. But just when he thinks his troubles are over, Greg begins to suspect the Hope Diamond curse to be true. He and anyone who comes into contact with the Eye of the Sun are on a downward spiral toward destruction. The only way to save their lives is to discover who stole the necklace in the first placebefore its too late.

Jake Diamond is a Chinese antique dealer in San Frncisco and a special variety of sweet and sour sauce. Chun Liu ambles into his shop and offers Jake a piece of Chinese heaven, a 13th Century oil on silk painting by Zheng Mengfu. While theres something oddly familiar about this Mr. Liu, its just not there. The scroll has all provenances and signatures and has been signed off by the experts but go figure, Jake discovers what he believes to be a fatal flaw in the scrolls authenticity. And so begins Jakes Chinese adventure chasing Dr. Liu through the poetic and uniquely Chinese cities of Taipei, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Shuzou and Shanghai. Jakes range of encounters run from Pentecostals, an accusation of murder, to his meeting his devilish jailer when a prisoner in the Korean War and a garlic eating Chinese cop who puts the kibosh to Jakes future.

FIRST IN THE NATIONAL BESTSELLING CHOCOHOLIC MYSTERY SERIES! After giving up her career as a Texas trophy wife, 28-year-old Lee McKinney finds herself in a Michigan resort town, keeping the books for her Aunt Nettie’s luxury chocolate business. But she soon finds that her new life isn’t all truffles and bonbons... Clementine Ripley, the defense attorney everyone loves to hate, is throwing a party that calls for several thousand dollars worth of custom chocolates—some made in the image of her champion cat. Lee jumps at the job, but sweet success takes a bitter turn when someone adds and extra ingrediant—cyanide—to one of their delicious chocolates and it finds its way into Ms. Ripley’s mouth. Now it’s up to Lee to figure out who tampered with Aunt Nettie’s recipe before they find themselves behind not-so-chocolate bars. INCLUDES YUMMY CHOCOLATE TRIVIA!