The Body in the Bed

The excerpt below is from a new novella featuring Roger and Suzanne, once more back in Uruguay solving a murder.  The newest entry in the South American mystery series brings Roger and Suzanne back to Montevideo to attend a festive dinner honoring their friend's promotion to police captain.  There's a surprise guest waiting for them when they get to their hotel room.  Roger and Suzanne are the lead suspects in a murder, their allies on the police forces of Uruguay and Paraguay may be the targets of a conspiracy, and nobody can be trusted.  This fast paced, action filled, novella should satisfy readers of the previous books in the series as we renew acquaintances with old friends and enemies, and say farewell to one of them.  Readers new to the series can enjoy this book as a stand-alone introduction to the region and to the series characters.  This novella will be published on Amazon in time to become a special Christmas present for all of your friends with Kindles in 2012. 

The Body in the Bed

My wife, Suzanne, and I both had the same e-mail on our computer, an ultra-fancy invitation to next week’s gala event in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay.  In the most formal of Spanish, The Intendencia de Montevideo invited us to a dinner hosted by the Mayor and Police Chief to celebrate the upcoming promotion of Martin Gonzalez to the rank of Chief of Detectives.  Martin was a special friend of ours, and this was a very significant and well earned career advancement for him.   I was tempted to say yes to the invitation if Suzanne agreed to join me for the occasion.

I waited until our dinner at home in the huge house in Beverly Hills, California that Suzanne had inherited from her father after his murder, when we first met, to ask her.  She looked surprised for a moment before putting down her knife and fork and replying.

“I was looking for an excuse to suggest that we go to the celebration, but thought you might be too busy or just not want to do all the formalities they'll expect.  Let’s do it!  But I have to admit, there’s a nitpicky little voice inside my head asking whether we’ll be able to get as far as the hotel in Montevideo before we discover the first dead body.”  Suzanne rolled her eyes and grimaced as she obviously remembered discovering the grisly scene of the dismembered body in the park the first time we had come to Montevideo and first met Martin.

That earned a smile from me, probably because I've gotten so used to seeing dead bodies in my former career as a homicide detective on the Los Angeles Police department and my present work as a private detective.  “Well, so far we’ve gotten registered at the hotel once before we found the body and we’ve been told about the body before we ever got to the hotel the other time.  I guess that makes the answer to your question that it’s a 50-50 chance either way.”