3131 Ocean Avenue - Thomas William Simpson - Bog

3131 Ocean Avenue
 A Ray Stiles Mystery With a nod to Dash Hammett and Ray Chandler, Simpson Books introduces Ray Stiles, a modern American female sleuth with an acid tongue and some pretty wild sexual desires. Ray receives a call in the middle of the night. A woman with a sultry voice says she has a dead guy in her front foyer and she could really use Ray's help. Ray's a small town Private Eye. Belmar, NJ. She does small stuff like insurance fraud. She follows women whose husbands smell infidelity. Shadows college and high school kids whose parents fear drug deals and overdoses. Dead guys are a different story. Dead guys are serious business. Still, Ray can't afford to blow off the phone call. Ray needs the dough. Bills and expenses out the wazoo. One kid in college, another one will be soon. Mortgage to pay. Health insurance. Car insurance for the 'Vette. Food and surfboards to buy. And no help at all from either of her no-good ex-husbands. Ray's 100% on her own. So yeah, she agrees to drive up to Sea Grove in the middle of the night. Check out the dead guy. Really she has no choice. Bank account on its death bed. And hey, 3131 Ocean Avenue in Sea Grove-that's where the fat cats live. Where the well-heeled have their summer beach houses. Ray finds both money and the dead guy at 3131 Ocean Avenue. She also finds Ms. Valerie Worthington, who will, over the next few weeks, beguile and confound Ray as Ray tries to unravel the mystery of the dead guy's demise. More than a simple whodunit, 3131 Ocean Avenue delves into the psyches of the story's primary characters, Ray and Valerie. What's motivating them? Money, yes, but also power and ambition, lust and love, revenge and revulsion. The plot is thick and ever changing. Lies and deceptions litter Ray's path to the truth. Hair loss, corporate profits, corporate espionage, family animosities, corrupt cops all stand in Ray's way. Ray gets threatened, kidnapped, roughed up, held at gunpoint, but she doesn't bat an eye, doesn't give up, doesn't give an inch.