MY FRIEND PEGGY Kendall has been involved in my books from the beginning. The year was 2003, the place, a little bar called Tiny’s that squatted in the corner of the parking lot of a small shopping center on the north end of Longboat Key, Florida. I had decided that my wife, Jean, was right, and it was time for me to tie myself to a chair and write the book I’d been talking about since she’d first become my sweetheart way back in my college days.
With a lot of trepidation, I announced to my friends in the bar one night that I was going to write a mystery novel. That drew much laughter, but it quickly dissolved into a semi-sober discussion that primarily involved the naming of the characters. Peggy and her husband, Dave, were part of that group. Most of the regular characters who have populated the ensuing eleven Matt Royal mysteries are based on people who were in the bar that night, and I might add, many subsequent nights.
Peggy and Jean formed what I think of as the dynamic duo who listen to my ramblings, add intelligent thought, read my scribbles as they exit the computer, edit my words, encourage me with love and laughter and sharp-edged comments, and generally treat me as they once did their teenaged sons. I couldn’t do this without them. They have been an invaluable asset to me during the writing of each of the Matt Royal novels.
After Peggy’s husband, Dave, died in 2009, she moved to The Villages. It was she who came up with the idea of placing this story in her new hometown, that pleasant community of retirees in North Central Florida. Peggy, along with her neighbors Patty and Bob Geoghegan, shared their time and knowledge of the area with Jean and me during the month we lived in The Villages when I was just beginning the writing of this book.
Tim Harding, a real estate agent without peer, shared his encyclopedic knowledge of The Villages with me and was always ready to take my calls to answer any questions as they arose. If there are mistakes in this book regarding The Villages, they are mine, not Tim’s. He knows his community.
Then, there is my Starbucks cabal, my good buddies Lloyd Deming, Mark Bailey, and David Gilbert. They also listen to me and give me advice on plots and often ground me so that I don’t get off on tangents that won’t work. Envision, if you will, four old guys in the corner of a coffee shop, milling about, scissors in hand, trying to work out how to best kill someone with a pair of left-handed scissors. It was vivid enough that I decided to change the murder weapon in this book to a pistol.
David has served the Miss Florida Pageant as a board member for decades and it was his idea that started me on the plot of this novel. He shared his vast knowledge and resources of pageant life as it is now and as it was forty years ago. He saves everything and stores most of it, I think, in his car. Again, if there are mistakes in my writing about the pageant, they are mine, not David’s.
The eleven baristas of the Maitland Starbucks, where I do much of my writing, always take care of us. They are unfailingly polite to all their customers in what has become a friendly small-town gathering place. They represent the best of our young people, many of them working diligently on college degrees as they concoct every coffee drink known to modern man and some that are unknowable. With their permission, I have used each of their names as characters in this book.
Finally, big thanks go to my readers, my family, and the men and women of Oceanview Publishing, particularly Bob and Pat Gussin, Lee Randall, and Emily Baar. None of this would be possible without you.