Murder on Longboat Key

Real estate agents are being attacked up and down Longboat Key, Florida, which offers for sale some of the most expensive homes in the area. When Agent Marta Vining comes up missing after the private showing of a waterfront estate to an unknown client, it seems likely that the “stalker” has struck again. But this perception changes as the investigation brings into the mix totally disparate characters, many of whom seem to have a reason to prefer Marta out of the way. Suddenly the incident no longer seems random. It is personal.
Woven into the fabric of three diverse lifestyles—New York City, Southwestern Virginia and Sarasota, Florida—are the separate lives which are brought together by this one murder. Jennie Worth, Marta’s “partner” in their real estate office; her mother Anne; her stepfather Tommie Lee Samples; her boss Neal Corbett; Marta’s ex-husband Jeff Vining; the real estate office manager Callie, and almost every woman with whom Marta came into contact, even peripherally, would have been perfectly happy without her in their lives.
Lt. Bill Charles, a Sarasota Police Detective, is charged with the thankless task of unraveling the many threads which bring these people together. His first problem—did she die of accidental drowning or was she murdered? His second problem—bring to light the many secrets his potential suspects try to keep hidden from him, generally on the assumption that the information is irrelevant to the case. His third problem—if it was murder, “who dunnit”, how and why?
The story is narrated by the characters themselves, each in his or her own chapters, so we see the events (both past and present) through their eyes. The murderer is naturally revealed in the final chapter, but the information gleaned along the way takes us into the lives of the characters in ways a straight narration could never do. Start reading and you won’t want to put it down.