Exile, Florida: The new home of Yankee transplant Frank Cole, a regular guy trying to restart his life . . . while investigating a murder every now and then.
Mystery News review of Exile Trust, October-November 2008 edition.
Frank Cole is grateful when his friend, Exile (Florida) Police Chief Denny Dannon, throws a little work his way. The new job is with an Exile bank anticipating an audit of its safe deposit boxes by a regulatory agency. It seems the records have not been well kept and the bank would like to find the whereabouts of some of its box-holders before auditors swarm in. Frank is not a licensed private eye, but a former software developer/entrepreneur, now a “fact-checker,” who works with insurance and investigation companies – so the job’s right up his alley.
Susan Wilmington, the bank’s new manager of the safe-deposit box department, is at first on the defensive but soon figures out that she and Frank will work well together. Susan confides in Frank that she has misgivings about a man she recently allowed into Dorothea Freehoffer’s safe deposit box without going through all the proper procedures ... and asks Frank to check it out for her.
As it turns out, Mrs. Freehoffer is dead and the man who supposedly accessed the box – her husband Andy – died a year before she did. One thing leads to another and soon Frank is hot on the trail of ... of what, he doesn’t exactly know.
I love the character of Frank Cole. He’s in the Panhandle of Florida after his software development company up north folds, leaving him in an ocean of debt. His lawyer/friend convinces him he needs to lay low for awhile, taking on small jobs for small pay and hoping to convince his creditors he’s not worth pursuing. (In that, he’s a bit reminiscent of Elaine Viets’s protagonist in her dead-end-job mysteries.) I also love the name of the fictional town of Exile, Florida. How perfect!
Exile Trust is well paced, well written, and had me cheering Frank on starting with page one. Great secondary characters abound – including Gray Toliver, a retired navy chief petty officer Frank hires to help with the bank job.
Exile Trust has soooooo much to like, readers will be praying for more.
By Diana. First published in Mystery News, October-November 2008 edition.
http://www.cozylibrary.com/default.asp?id=585
Vincent H. O’Neil brings a wealth of life experience to his writing. He has served as a US Army officer both stateside and overseas, worked as a private consultant for a software development firm, managed risk for a major northeastern bank, and written advertising copy.
A native of Massachusetts, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree from West Point and a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. After writing in his spare time for many years, he won the St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Competition in 2005.
His award-winning book, Murder in Exile, is the first in a series of mystery novels featuring the character Frank Cole. The sequel to Murder in Exile, Reduced Circumstances, was released by St. Martin's Press in July of 2007. The third book in the Frank Cole/Exile series, Exile Trust, was released in June, 2008.
