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The Ghost of Me: A Tale of a Murder at the Jersey Shore
The Ghost of Me is a murder mystery based on actual events and people.
In 1964, Harry Anglemyer was brutally murdered outside a popular nightclub in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, eight miles south of Atlantic City. The Cape May County beat reporter for The Atlantic City Press at the time, my mother covered the crime, which remains unsolved to this day.
Harry Anglemyer was a notable Ocean City, New Jersey, businessman in the mid-1950s / early '60s. Dubbed "The Fudge King" for his successful chain of fudge shops sprinkled throughout coastal South Jersey, Harry had stirred controversy a year earlier by suing the shore town over its decades-old blue laws. Then shortly thereafter, controversy became notoriety when Harry was indicted and prosecuted for acts of "moral indecency" involving an Ocean City police captain of detectives and two other men --- which not just a few then believed had been a set-up, political retribution for his lawsuit against "America's Greatest Family Resort."
My mother's articles on Harry's "morals charges" and subsequent murder, fictively tweaked, are used, along with other reporters' accounts, as the spine of the story set in 1965. Seen mostly through the eyes of her eleven-and-a-half-year-old son, Gretchen, the main character, reports on a story that, by all appearances, is about a robbery gone fatally wrong. But as she digs deeper, the possibility that it could be something else altogether becomes apparent --- that "Harry Fenton's" homicide was premeditated and made to look like a tragic byproduct of a robbery.
Set against the Ocean City and Atlantic City backdrop of 1965, Gretchen doggedly pursues her twisting, turning story of Harry's murder while still coming to terms with her recent divorce, which has brought her back to Ocean City to live with her retired parents, the son, the only child of the marriage, in tow.
While Gretchen chases after her story of Harry's murder, doing her best to keep the daily squabbling with a domineering mother to a minimum, forces are at work in the Atlantic City of 1965 to resurrect the moribund "Queen of Resorts" from its rotting repose by the sea. Having failed the first time to pass a referendum to bring legalized casino gambling to its faded-glory shores, a consortium of city fathers, businessmen, state legislators, and unions is regrouping for another shot at getting it approved. However, another interested party has never hedged its bet placed five years earlier that legalized casino gambling would eventually arrive in Atlantic City and pay off in organized crime.
With help from inside city hall, the Mob has acquired choice blocks of Atlantic City through eminent domain to resell the properties to casino operators when gambling is at last approved. A lead in Harry's murder draws Gretchen into seeming danger when she uncovers the Mob's real estate speculation scheme.
In 1964, Harry Anglemyer was brutally murdered outside a popular nightclub in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, eight miles south of Atlantic City. The Cape May County beat reporter for The Atlantic City Press at the time, my mother covered the crime, which remains unsolved to this day.
Harry Anglemyer was a notable Ocean City, New Jersey, businessman in the mid-1950s / early '60s. Dubbed "The Fudge King" for his successful chain of fudge shops sprinkled throughout coastal South Jersey, Harry had stirred controversy a year earlier by suing the shore town over its decades-old blue laws. Then shortly thereafter, controversy became notoriety when Harry was indicted and prosecuted for acts of "moral indecency" involving an Ocean City police captain of detectives and two other men --- which not just a few then believed had been a set-up, political retribution for his lawsuit against "America's Greatest Family Resort."
My mother's articles on Harry's "morals charges" and subsequent murder, fictively tweaked, are used, along with other reporters' accounts, as the spine of the story set in 1965. Seen mostly through the eyes of her eleven-and-a-half-year-old son, Gretchen, the main character, reports on a story that, by all appearances, is about a robbery gone fatally wrong. But as she digs deeper, the possibility that it could be something else altogether becomes apparent --- that "Harry Fenton's" homicide was premeditated and made to look like a tragic byproduct of a robbery.
Set against the Ocean City and Atlantic City backdrop of 1965, Gretchen doggedly pursues her twisting, turning story of Harry's murder while still coming to terms with her recent divorce, which has brought her back to Ocean City to live with her retired parents, the son, the only child of the marriage, in tow.
While Gretchen chases after her story of Harry's murder, doing her best to keep the daily squabbling with a domineering mother to a minimum, forces are at work in the Atlantic City of 1965 to resurrect the moribund "Queen of Resorts" from its rotting repose by the sea. Having failed the first time to pass a referendum to bring legalized casino gambling to its faded-glory shores, a consortium of city fathers, businessmen, state legislators, and unions is regrouping for another shot at getting it approved. However, another interested party has never hedged its bet placed five years earlier that legalized casino gambling would eventually arrive in Atlantic City and pay off in organized crime.
With help from inside city hall, the Mob has acquired choice blocks of Atlantic City through eminent domain to resell the properties to casino operators when gambling is at last approved. A lead in Harry's murder draws Gretchen into seeming danger when she uncovers the Mob's real estate speculation scheme.
1819 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 26, 2025
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About the author
Bill LaFleur
1 bookBill LaFleur is a New Jersey native whose storytelling is deeply rooted in personal history and regional lore. He grew up surfing along the Jersey Shore, and that coastal backdrop plays a central role in his debut novel, The Ghost of Me: A Tale of a Murder at the Jersey Shore.
Photo courtesy of Charlie Unger
Photo courtesy of Charlie Unger
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February 4, 2026
I just finished reading "The Ghost of Me," and I loved it! At first, I couldn’t put it down, and then later on… after passing the halfway point… I deliberately forced myself to set it down each night after reading for a while, wanting to savor it longer. Although I think it will be hard for anyone who didn't grow up in the mid-60s along the Jersey Shore to appreciate the many references to celebrities and politicians, TV shows, music groups, songs, and so on from that era, I certainly did. The author’s writing style, with the voices he gives to each of the many characters, his impressive vocabulary, his long, sometimes whole-page sentences, his sense of humor and suspenseful buildup… all of it masterful. Bravo!
Displaying 1 of 1 review