Grave Yard Shift

by Bob Moats

Jake Wyler bought a cemetery. It was one of those impulse buys and now he was having to spend a large portion of his life savings to be a property owner. He had returned to his hometown to find his life turned upside down and involved in murder, missing money and love letters. He meets an old high school classmate and she handles his money in the bank where she works. Jake has no idea how to run a cemetery and since the former owner was murdered, he was now really lost. It seems Jake gave the former owner the purchase money in cash and someone murdered him for the money, hidden in the house on the cemetery property. Jake and the son of his lady banker turn the house over to find the hidden cash and come up with nothing. Two times the house had been broken into and was almost the cause for Jake’s own murder. A new series about an ordinary guy caught in mysteries and dead bodies. This book is a novella.

53 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 27, 2023

About the author

Detroit area resident, Bob Moats, has been writing short stories and plays for as long as he can remember. He has lost most of his original stories, typed or handwritten, in the numerous moves he has made from his hometown of Fraser, Michigan to Northern Michigan, to Las Vegas and back to Fraser, where he now lives. He also wrote the short fantasy novella "Crystal Prison of Kyr" and is a published playwright with his three act comedy "Happily Ever After".

Moats became one of the causalities of unemployment early in 2009, and had time on his hands to finally pursue a life long dream of writing a full blown crime novel. Thus was born the first book, "Classmate Murders".

What followed was a series of 20 books starting with "The Classmate Murders" which introduces the main character, Jim Richards, who has to admit he has become a senior citizen, reluctantly. Richards, one day, receives an email from a childhood sweetheart asking for his help, but by the time he reaches her, she has been murdered. His life turns around and he is pulled into numerous murders of women from his high school who he hasn't seen in forty years. Along with a friend of his, Buck, a big, mustached biker, they go off to track down the killer before he can get to one former classmate, Penny Wickens, a TV talk show host who Jim has just fallen for while protecting her. The killer is also murdering the women right out from under police protection, driving homicide detective Will Trapper crazy, and he slowly depends on Jim to help. There's humor, suspense, wild chases across suburban Detroit with cops, classic cars and motorcycle clubs; murder, mayhem, a good amount of romance and a twist ending.

Bob recently started a new series, the Fatal series. The first book "Fatal Rejection" is about serial killers, an author and the editors that the author wants to murder. The second book "Fatal Departure" follows the first with a new serial killer stalking the principal characters, Sarah and Dave. A third book is now in the works, "Fatal Romance" about a killer using companion ads to find his prey.