Showing results by author "Bill Noel" in All Categories

A pleasant walk along the coast on Folly Beach, South Carolina, thrusts retiree Chris Landrum and his friend Charles Fowler into investigating a death that police are convinced was an unfortunate accident. Their resolve to continue sticking their noses where according to the police they have no business being was strengthened when a second person dies—the second death of a member of the small crew building a beachfront home.

With Halloween rapidly approaching, retired bureaucrat Chris Landrum would like nothing more than for his least favorite holiday to skip his adopted hometown of Folly Beach, South Carolina. The hopes of a quiet October drifts away on the tide when Chris’ friend Charles Fowler stumbles upon the dead body of a curiously dressed woman with a hatchet firmly placed in her back.

There were numerous better ways for retiree Chris Landrum to begin his day than to listen to a traumatized friend Virgil DeBonnet telling him how he found a body with a knife sticking out his back, floating in a small boat less than a half mile from Chris's cottage.

Halloween is traditionally filled with ghosts, goblins, and ghouls but this year the holiday brings something more sinister to the small South Carolina barrier island of Folly Beach. The popular fall holiday has never been a favorite of retired bureaucrat Chris Landrum but that didn’t stop his friend Charles Fowler from convincing him to tour a haunted house sponsored by a local charity. In addition to being faced with the scary scenes that appear in most haunted houses, they stumble across a dead body—a real dead body.

The theft of a Rolex worth more than most new vehicles begins a series of burglaries casting a dark shadow on the Christmas season for Folly Beach, the small South Carolina barrier island. The number of suspects drastically increases when Mackey’s Miracle Troupe, a group of singers and actors, arrives on Folly. The Troupe’s leader Peter Mackey claims the visit is to bring an upbeat message to the community while performing good deeds throughout the island, but its arrival at the same time the burglaries begin is too coincidental to be overlooked.

An early-morning phone call from a friend asking Chris Landrum if he’d heard anything about a skeleton discovered on Mosquito Beach, an African American enclave fewer than a handful of miles from Chris’ home on Folly Beach, South Carolina, soon embroils Chris and a few of his friends into trying to solve a mystery dating back 60 plus years. Chris and Charles, his friend and self-proclaimed private detective, quest for answers takes on life or death proportions when two more of Chris’s acquaintances are killed, and his friend Al Washington is next in the killer’s sights.

Christmas on South Carolina’s Folly Beach is a time for festivities, families, friendship, fellowship, and reflection. When a fire ruled intentionally set leaves residents of five apartments homeless days before the holiday, retired bureaucrat Chris Landrum and his friend Charles Fowler take it upon themselves to not only make sure the displaced residents have somewhere to live but are determined to learn who was responsible for the massive conflagration.

Chris Landrum is dragged out of peaceful retirement when the theft of a priceless, hand-carved figurine from a church’s nativity scene threatens to suck the spirit of Christmas out of Folly Beach. If that's not bad enough, pieces of valuable jewelry and surfboards are stolen off homeowners’ porches on the small, South Carolina island located in the shadows of historic Charleston.

On an early morning walk through the nature preserve on the east end of Folly Beach on their way to photograph the iconic Morris Island Lighthouse, Chris Landrum and his friend Charles Fowler’s peaceful morning takes an abrupt turn. They encounter a woman who tells them she got separated from her husband during a storm, then claims they’d been relic hunting. Her husband can’t verify what he and his wife were doing. He’s dead - murdered.

Chris Landrum’s trip to Nashville to visit his best friend Charles hits a sour note when they learn of the death of the agent who had persuaded Heather, Charles’s girlfriend, to move to Music City to seek fame and fortune as a singer. Tagging along on the trip is Cal Ballew, an aging country music performer and owner of Cal’s Bar and Grill on Folly Beach, South Carolina.

Four aging comedians deliver anything but laughs when they descend upon Folly Beach, a small, laid-back barrier island near Charleston, South Carolina...Jokes, lies, secrets, dead bodies, several murder suspects, and danger follow the comics. It’s up to retired bureaucrat Chris along with his cadre of quirky pals to sort out what’s going on before some of them are added to the list of victims.

Chris Landrum and his friend Barbara Deanelli’s search for shark teeth abruptly changes directions when they discover a woman at water’s edge clinging to a surfboard. How she got there was a mystery - a mystery compounded when she doesn’t remember her name, her past, or who abducted her, and nearly sent her to her death in the mid-December waters off the coast of Folly Beach, South Carolina. Chris and a cadre of his quirky pals are determined to learn the woman’s identity and what happened.

An accidental drug overdose is ruled the cause of the death of the daughter of Chris Landrum’s neighbor. The young woman’s father, a retired police detective, had accused Chris of murder days after he’d arrived on Folly Beach a decade ago, and they’ve butted heads frequently since then. So, why get involved and question the cause of death? Could it be because the daughter was dating Joel Hurt, a man on the path to unseating Chris’s good friend, Brian Newman, as mayor of the small barrier-island?

Chris Landrum's world is turned upside down when he stumbles on a body of a killer for hire. Chris's friends on the laid-back, peaceful South Carolina island are convinced they know who the hit man was sent to kill, and ask the retired bureaucrat to stick his nose in business that should be left to the police. If that's not enough, Chris comes home to an intruder intent on taking his life, his best friend announces he's moving out of state, and his long-term girlfriend may be leaving him.

A knock on Chris Landrum's retirement cottage door proves that he doesn't have to leave home to find trouble. His friend, Mel Evans, a marsh tour-boat captain, arrives to tell Chris that there might be a little problem. Chris is shocked to hear that the little problem is that his friend is accused of murdering a college student. Before he has enough time for that to sink in, Chris learns that another friend from Larry's shady past is threatened to be exposed by a con artist and former partner-in-crime.

A book release party at a local bookstore is interrupted by the arrival of a police officer announcing a man was murdered on Bowen Island, located fewer than two miles from Chris Landrum’s adopted home on Folly Beach, South Carolina. Even before the identity of the victim is known, the retired bureaucrat’s best friend and self-proclaimed private detective Charles Fowler decides it’s their responsibility to catch the killer.

Chris Landrum answers an early morning call and the first words he hears from his best friend Charles Fowler are, “Called the police chief yet?” The retiree didn’t have to be a psychic to know nothing good was coming next. He learns that an acquaintance on his adopted island of Folly Beach, South Carolina, has been murdered and according to the police, suspects are nowhere to be found, which, of course, leads Charles, a self-proclaimed private detective, to declare that it was up to Chris and him to solve the crime.

A peaceful kayak trip through the marsh suddenly turns terrifying for Chris Landrum and his friend, Charles Fowler, when a single-engine airplane plummets toward their watercraft. After coming inches from certain death, the kayakers’ heroic efforts save two of the plane’s occupants but failed to save the other two passengers. Learning the pilot had been poisoned and three of the plane’s passengers live on Folly Beach, site of Chris and Charles’s retirement homes, Charles, the self-proclaimed private detective, decides it’s up to the two retirees to catch the killer.

Chris Landrum’s least favorite holiday was rapidly approaching, and his wish was that Halloween would slip away like a phantom disappearing into the fog. The retired bureaucrat’s hopes were shattered when a man walking within inches of him was gunned down. Chris then learns the dead man was on Folly for a conference of psychics, mediums, witches, palm readers, and others with paranormal powers.