Doyle's Haunting

Arthur Doyle, P.I. #5

by Bob Moats

Halloween is a time for children to go door-to-door Trick or Treating. For Doyle and his girlfriend, Poppy, it’s a time to catch a ghost. Poppy is investigating an insurance claim of a woman who says she was pushed down a flight of stairs by a ghost in a posh, but very old, hotel in Detroit. She enlists Doyle to help and they try to get to the bottom of the claim. The hotel manager is frantic to disclaim the woman, since it’s now a lawsuit and the woman is staying in the hotel until they can settle. Doyle and Poppy search the hotel for clues but they have to wait an extra day before they can get into a mysterious room with a door that just won’t open. While waiting for help to get into the room, they go up to Doyle’s newly rebuilt cabin and while in town they are given a request to exorcise a demon. Only the demon is something Doyle never expected. Back at the hotel, they wait for the ghost of a woman who hung herself years ago and prove she doesn’t exist. Murder, ghosts, demons and psychics are just a few of the Halloween treats and tricks they have to face. This is the fifth book of the Doyle, P.I. Series.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 9, 2014

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.