A Midcoast Murder

Jesse Ashworth Mystery #1

by Stephen E. Stanley

High school English teacher Jesse Ashworth is in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Should he take early retirement or continue teaching? When his best friend, Rhonda Shepard, retires and moves to the coast of Maine to open a gift shop, Jesse offers to help her set up her business.

Much to Jesse's surprise, Rhonda's gift shop in located in the town where Jesse grew up. Jesse must not only deal with relocation, but he must also reestablish ties that he had severed thirty-some years ago.
Jesse purchases a run-down 1920's bungalow called Eagles Nest. The house was the site of a 1960's commune and has been more or less neglected in recent years. While digging a garden in the isolated back yard, Jesse and his pug dog, Argus, make a gruesome discovery.

Police chief Tim Mallory is one of the first on the scene of the discovery. Tim and Jesse were in the same high school graduation class and have a shared history. Tim and Jesse begin the investigation of the unknown victim and struggle to renew their friendship.

Thanks to Jesse's keen eye and the indestructibility of polyester fabric, the victim is initially identified as a student who disappeared in 1970.

Jesse and Tim begin to research what they believe to be a cold-case file until threats to several former classmates help provide clues to the murder.

While Jesse is investigating the murder, he is also struggling to deal with new relationships and the need to establish a sense of place for himself. The events of the plot allow Jesse to explore new areas of his life.

Genres: Mystery, LGBT, Gay, Crime, Fiction, Romance, M M Romance

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2009

About the author

Stephen E. Stanley has been an educator for over thirty years, first as a high school English instructor and then as a full-time teacher mentor for secondary education in a large New Hampshire school district. He grew up in Bath, Maine and currently resides in New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Octobercountry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we have a great premise for a series, with the retired schoolteacher and the small-town cop banding together to solve mysteries, and I appreciated the picture-postcard Maine setting as well. However, I think the book shows its roots as a first novel----it isn't badly written, but could use a little more polish. (And really, an editor should have told the author to remove just about every exclamation point from this manuscript---as a rule, I would say that novels simply shouldn't contain too many exclamation points---practically NONE, in fact, unless they're used in dialogue.)

Now, this is a solid mystery, and not a romance---no love scenes here. And that's fine---however, I think a definite shortcoming of the book was the lack of ALL emotional content. It's as if the author is uncomfortable with writing about relationships. I've read other gay-themed mysteries that focus on a decent whodunnit while also delving into the private life of the main characters, and they've been quite satisfying. The complete lack of detail regarding the relationship between Jesse and Tim in this book is rather off-putting, actually, and difficult to understand.

It's a great set-up for some decent drama---here you have two old school acquaintances getting to know one another again after thirty-five years. But the way the book handles their initial hook-up is baffling: Tim comes over to dinner at Jesse's place one evening, without Jesse even knowing Tim is gay---and then there's a jump-cut to the next morning with Tim coming out of Jesse's shower, and apparently they're now a couple. What the heck??! This would have been a great opportunity for a long dialogue scene which could have been played in any number of different ways. No, I'm not asking for a sex scene---but I would like to know how these two ended up together, what they said to one another---there is NOTHING in the text to indicate how this played out.

Likewise, a little later in the plot Tim's eighteen-year-old daughter comes home from visiting her mother and finds Jesse at Tim's place. Suddenly she not only finds out her father is gay, but that he's actively involved with another man----great opportunity for drama, no? Well---apparently not---because once again this is never explored---we never do get to know what happens, how she reacts.

So for me this is a problem---I'm not asking for the novel to turn into a torrid romance, and I have no problem at all about there being zero explicit content. But I would like to know a little more about the relationship of the protagonists, how it develops and plays out; I'd like a little more emotional content in the book, in addition to the mystery. So, as such I wasn't really satisfied with this in the end, and I'm giving it a mixed review.

This is the first of several mysteries in a series, and I am curious to know what happens next---and if the author's writing style shows any development. But, I'm not sure whether I want to continue if the other books also ignore the relationship as thoroughly as this one did.

[Mat · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main plot is actually pretty good, but the editing is terrible. Every chapter has at least one technical editing issue (misspelled words, missing punctuation, or other grammatical concerns). As other readers have indicated, there are too many asides from the narrator, making the text disjointed. In addition, at least for me, the narrator has WAY too many things going on at once for himself. We've got romance... and home... and workplace... and pets... and hobbies... and community... and... and... and... I'm all for fully-rounded characters - it's the reason I stay with a series; but those qualities need to be developed over multiple stories, so that we can become engaged in learning about the character. There was just too much going on in this book. Sadly, because so many things are mentioned, there's no real development of any one of the areas to make the characters thoroughly engaging.

That said, this is one of the few books that I continued reading despite the challenges. I think there's potential, but I will be cautious before reading the next book.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself was pretty good. However, what really bothered me was the constant speaking directly to the reader and explaining something about the people from Maine, or his dog. For example, the following is typical, and it always pulled me out of it.

“Plan on staying for supper,” I said. “Unless, of course, you have other plans.” In Maine we still use the term supper for the evening meal.

Stanley, Stephen E. (2009). A Midcoast Murder (Kindle Locations 1084-1085). Stonefield Publishing Co. Kindle Edition.

If the information is integral to the story, then it needs to be part of the story, not some aside comment to the reader.

Overall, it was good.

[Fran Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the characters and the story, but by Chapter 3, I was up to fifteen blatent grammar/puncuation errors. If the characters weren't so endearing, I would have given up. Hope he fired his editor after this one. I refuse to give up and will give the next in the series a chance.

[Eugenio · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much unnecessary information.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very enjoyable book and I hope to find additional writings by this author. The main character of this mystery novel was a recently retired single gay man who moves back to his hometown. It seems that most gay mysteries I read involve 20 something year old men and while the books are many times enjoyable it is nice to have a character at an age that I can better identify since I am approaching my 50th birthday soon. The story and writing is simple (and that is not meant as a criticism) and easy to read yet I was still surprised with the ending. The only possible complaint I could have does not deal with the author or his writing but with the edition I read. The Kindle edition had several typos. They were not so erronoeous, however, that I could not figure out the correctios as I read along.

[Neet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read on a lazy weekend! Middle aged retired teacher follows friend and fellow retired teacher Rhonda Shepard to his hometown in Bath, Maine and gets involved in the mystery of the skeletal remains found in his new home's back yard.Jesse also finds romance with an old classmate and town chief of police Tim Malloy. Loved how the mystery evolved and was finally solved, made me want to move to Maine.

[Andy Grootens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erg leuk boek waarin de homoseksuele antagonist nu eens niet met iedereen het bed induikt, maar een normaal mens als u en ik met een grote voorliefde voor koken. De vierde ster is voor de recepten achter in het boek die gedurende het verhaal worden beschreven. Niet te spannend, maar wel met veel humor verteld. Snel verder met het tweede boek!

[Wyrn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely story set in the picturesque town of Bath in Maine with an intriguing cold case murder. It was a change and so refreshing to read a story older characters. The characters were established so well that I could actually picture them going about their business in the historic town of Bath.

[Thomas]

If you are a stickler about grammar and editing, then this ebook may prove to be annoying,

BUT

I liked the story and never get caught up in a editing.

[Ptdog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. Stanley's humor is enjoyable throughout. It's good to read about old guys in gay fiction for a change. There seem like a few here I might like to tap! ;)