Please welcome Randy Overbeck and the latest addition to his Haunted Shores mystery series, Scarlet at Crystal River.
Darrell
and Erin thought they were heading to Florida for a carefree honeymoon, but the
ghosts of two immigrants children haunt them, pleading for help.
In 2019, the
Wild Rose Press launched the Haunted Shores Mysteries with my story about
Darrell, the teacher and coach who sees ghosts and the ghost of a huge black
student haunting a high school. Blood On The Chesapeake was so well
received by readers and reviewers that it became a #1 Amazon best seller. Then,
last year, the publisher released Crimson At Cape May in the middle of
the pandemic, a story featuring the specter of a bride murdered on her wedding
night, who stalks Darrell, still bleeding in her white wedding dress. This
second entry has won three national awards and, by now, the series has amassed
more than a dozen 5-Star reviews from national and international reviewers.
As I
pondered the third installment, I realized I wanted to keep all the critical
elements of the series—cold case murder, ghost, romance and resort—but I also
wanted to give my readers something different. On a break from my
brainstorming, I was thumbing through family pictures and came upon a photo of my
grandkids playing on a playground. Staring at the images of the smiling faces,
it hit me. What if the mystery was about the death of two your kids? Two kids
whose ghosts haunt Darrell to find justice for them?
The rest, as
they say, is history. Our last trip—pre-pandemic—was to the Florida Gulf coast
to find a suitable location for my narrative and I found a great one. Thus, Scarlet At Crystal River was born. Well, that and hundreds of
hours of writing, revising, re-writing, editing, re-writing…well, you get the
picture. I’m pretty happy with the end product and I hope readers are too.
Blurb
All Darrell
Henshaw wanted was to enjoy his honeymoon with his beautiful wife, Erin, in the
charming town of Crystal River on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida. Only a pair
of ghosts decide to intrude on their celebration. And not just any ghosts, the
spirits of two young Latino children. Unwilling at first to derail the
honeymoon for yet another ghost hunt, Darrell finally concedes when a
painting of the kids comes alive, weeping and pleading for his help.
When he and
Erin track down the artist, they discover the children’s family were migrant
workers the next county over. But when they travel there, their questions about
the kids gets their car shot up and Erin hospitalized. Torn between fear and
rage, Darrell must decide how far he will go to get justice for two young
children he never even knew.
Excerpt: There
and Not There
She kissed him
back, smiling. “Now that’s better than a little fictional romance.” She got up
and stretched her long legs.
“You ready for some waves?” he asked.
“If you’re up
to it, let’s do a mile or so on the sand first.”
“You’re on.”
Darrell gave a gentlemanly wave of his hand.
“I’ll race
you.”
Erin took off
like a shot, and Darrell hurried after her. Since the beach was small, they
covered the same ground Darrell had a few minutes earlier, passing the family
sandcastle builders, another jogger, and the same strolling couples. As usual,
she was quick, and he had to hustle to keep up, using some fancy footwork to
sidestep sunbathers as they ran. When they got to the north end of the beach
where Darrell had turned to double back, Erin headed for a little spit of land
that strutted out into the water. He looked beyond and saw what she was headed
for. Accelerating, he passed her.
Ahead, at the
far end of the beach, a pair of young kids, he’d guess about six, sat in the
sand as the waves rolled over their legs. Their small hands busied with a
primitive sandcastle. One had long, brown hair tied into pigtails, and the
other had a full head of brown hair, unkempt and in need of a trim. He came up
to them and stopped, Erin a few seconds behind.
The kids wore
street clothes, not swimsuits, but he didn’t think much about it. Then he
noticed something about the young boy. His right leg was stuck out at a
grotesque angle, as if it had been broken and never set. Both kids giggled at
the gurgling water that rolled up around their bare feet and pooled in the
makeshift moat they’d dug around their sand creation. The castle was crude, a
nearly round construction with seashells sticking up like turrets. The two kids
glanced up, caramel eyes wide and pleading with half smiles of white teeth.
In unison, they
said, “Ayudaños?”
“Huh?” Darrell
said.
“Cute castle,
huh?” Erin stared at the sand and looked up at Darrell. “I wonder who made it?”
Her eyes roamed around the area. “Out here on this spit of land it isn’t going
to last very long.”
“Those kids—”
he started, pointing to the pair. When he looked down, the sandcastle sat
alone, the gulf water flowing around the construction and into the crude moat.
His glance
darted out to the waves, thinking they’d abandoned their work and ran into the
water, even in their street clothes, though he wondered how the boy could have
run.
No girl or boy.
Oh, God! The
same two kids? “You vill have two visitors.”
“What’d you
say?” Erin asked, her gaze meeting his.
The ghosts.
Erin hadn’t seen them!
Shit, he
couldn’t tell her. Not now. Not here.
“Nothing,” he
managed around the lump in his throat and glanced back down at the sand.
There at his
feet, the crude sand construction they’d been working on, complete with the
three blue seashells sticking out of the top, sat alone on the sand. He reached
down and grabbed one of the small seashells as the prickle on his neck returned
and sizzled. Then he sensed something else, something ominous. No, not ominous,
malevolent. More of Natalia’s warning came back to him.
“I see a
malevolence, a great danger lurking nearby.”
A big wave
rushed in, rolling over their ankles and leveling the mound of sand, leaving
the beach empty. As if nothing had ever been there.
“Ayúdaños!”
Wild Rose Press (September 13, 2021)
Paranormal mystery
364 pp.
Buy Links
About the Author
Dr. Randy Overbeck is an award-winning educator,
author and speaker. As an educator, he served children for four decades in a
range of roles captured in his novels, from teacher and coach to principal and
superintendent. His thriller, Leave No Child Behind (2012) and his
recent mysteries, Blood on the Chesapeake, Crimson at Cape May, and
Scarlet at Crystal River have earned five star reviews and garnered
national awards including “Thriller of the Year--ReadersFavorite.com, “Gold
Award”—Literary Titan, “Mystery of the Year”—ReadersView.com and “Crowned Heart
of Excellence”—InD’Tale Magazine. As a member of the Mystery Writers of
America, Dr. Overbeck contributes to a writers’ critique group, serves as a
mentor to emerging writers, and participates in writing conferences such as
Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville, and the Midwest Writers Workshop. When he’s not
writing or researching his next novel or sharing his presentation, “Things
Still Go Bump in the Night,” he’s spending time with his incredible family of
wife, three children (and their spouses) and seven wonderful grandchildren.
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Thanks so
much for sharing your fabulous new mystery with us today.
1 comment:
Thanks so much for the chance to say a bit about my new novel. I appreciate the consideration.
Randy Overbeck
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