2nd in Series
Setting - Five Cities area of
Publisher: Wild Rose Press (March 17, 2025)
Paperback: 398 pages
ISBN-10: 1509260218 / ISBN-13: 978-1509260218
Digital ASIN: B0DSG8YN11
Hanlon & de la Guerra have gone full service. In this second book in the surfing crime-fighter mystery series, Thad Hanlon and his martial-arts-obsessed partner, Bri de la Guerra, hang out their shingle as newly licensed private investigators. Now in addition to fraud-busting, the two detectives do it all. Background checks. Surveillance. Even finding lost souls. Just about anything that requires sleuthing or going undercover.
All they need is a client.
That’s when a former exotic dancer from Bakersfield CA shows up looking for her surf prodigy son who’s gone missing in the wake of cult violence terrorizing the California Central Coast.
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Enjoy an ExcerptInside the beach groomer hopper, atop the wire mesh conveyor belt used to sift sand and trap debris, were more body parts, bloated and reeking of decomposition. Looked to be the body of an older teen. The tattoo on the youth’s neck gave me pause.
“You recognize him, don’t you?” Bri, my detecting agency partner, asked.
I did.
I had seen the young man a day ago outside Surf’s Up Donuts, the local hangout for post-surf session nutrition. He was in handcuffs with a couple of his BVL 13 homies. Pismo Beach PD had rousted the Bakersfield Varrio Locos 13 gang members in a weapons search and had not come up empty. NeckTat didn’t look happy then. Someone had made sure he would not look happy ever again.
The crowd of gawkers surrounding the tractor retreated somewhat—inches instead of feet—as State Park Ranger Cody Bolton pulled up in his patrol vehicle. He left his SUV siren screaming, hopped out of the 4x4, and handed me a roll of yellow police tape.
“Hanlon,” he said, “help me secure the crime scene.” From the cargo hold of his sport utility, he took a stack of orange traffic cones and ringed the tractor and the sand equipment. I stretched the barricade tape around the cones to form an oblong perimeter.
My surf buddy, Ranger Cody, took the DO NOT CROSS tape from me and tossed it into the back of his SUV. “Now we wait for Five Cities Forensics.” He killed the siren but left his patrol lights flashing.
The forensic team did their thing. The investigators took a lot of photos of the victim’s body, especially the ear-to-ear cut to the gang member’s neck, just above his BVL 13 tattoo.
As the techs put away their gear, Ranger Cody instructed me to head over to the Five Cities Sheriff’s South Station off Cabrillo Highway in Oceano to give a formal statement.
Detective Naiya Ygnacio was waiting for me at the Station House entrance. She ushered me into the interview room, directed me to sit, and queued the audio by verbally confirming the date, time, location, and persons present. “Hanlon,” she continued, “for the record, state your full name and profession.”
“Come on, Naiya. Is this necessary?”
The detective shoved the digital recorder across the interrogation room table. A red LED glowed. “Talk,” she said.
“Thaddeus Jude Hanlon, Private Investigator. My clients refer to me as the patron saint of lost causes.”
“Cut the crap, Hanlon. You don’t have any clients. And for the record, no one in Five Cities thinks you’re funny.”
“Zael thinks I’m funny.”
“Three-year-olds don’t count.”
I wasn’t feeling the respect fellow crime fighters warrant. But then, again, Naiya was being bleakly honest. I really didn’t have any clients. And nothing in the development pipeline.
About Topper Jones
Before diving into full-time writing, I worked in public accounting and consulting, and as a university professor teaching financial reporting, software development, and business communication. I’m a member of International Thriller Writers, an affiliate member of the Mystery Writers of America, and serve on the board of the Write On—St. George chapter of the League of Utah writers.
To be close to family, I make my home in the southwestern desert rather than my native California, but when the surf’s up, I’ll head to the Pacific to get in a little “water therapy” and catch a few waves.
Guest Post
I have an “idea catcher.” I bet you have one too. Mine is a
little notebook on the nightstand where I jot down all the little inspirations
I get while I sleep, dream, or ponder. It’s chock-full of ideas for the next
murder mystery. The howdunnits. The whodunnits. The whydunnits.
But getting from a brilliant idea to a fully developed
manuscript sometimes takes more than a notebook. Sometimes it requires a
mentor. A force majeure.
This is the story of the man who inspired me to write OCEANO
BEACH BEDLAM.
The year is 2019, Spring. I’m taking a class entitled “So
You Want to Write a Novel” through the Institute for Continued Learning at Utah
Tech University (then Dixie State). Dr. Warren Stucki, a local novelist and
author of the Dr. Cooper Mystery series and six standalone books, is teaching
the class. He challenges us to write a novel and gives us an assignment:
Write a one-page
summary of your novel’s setting. Then write a one- or two-page setting scene.
And, in just one sentence, write your theme.
At that point in my
writing journey, I had just finished the complete rewrite of my first murder
mystery, ALL THAT GLISTERS. In the final chapter, amateur sleuth Thad
Hanlon is exploring options for rebuilding his life after suffering major
personal loss. He tells his sleuthing partner, Bri de la Guerra, “This is going
to sound totally wackadoodle but I was considering getting a PI license. I thought,
maybe, I’d hang out a shingle as a Private Investigator.” Given how the first
book ends, I asked myself if a sequel made sense.
So for Dr. Stucki’s
assignment, I outline OCEANO BEACH BEDLAM and sketch out the scene where Thad
Hanlon lands his first client. Months later, on the way to the final draft of
the sequel, the original plot takes a few detours. But that first scene from
Dr. Stucki’s writing assignment? The scene where Thad brings in his first case as
a newly licensed PI? That survived almost completely intact as Chapter 3. Also
intact? A brand new character—Mrs. Dudamel—the client in search of her missing
son.
What was my
takeaway from Warren Stucki’s class?
Take the dare. It
might lead to a series—in this case, the Thad Hanlon & Bri de la Guerra
Mysteries.
Postscript: About
a month ago, when I shared this story at the official book launch for OCEANO
BEACH BEDLAM, Dr. Stucki was in the audience. He raised his hand and stood to
make an observation.
“And what you don’t know,” he told the group
assembled at The Book Bungalow, “is that Topper is the only one who ever did
the assignments in my class.”
Lots of laughter.
Gotta love that Dr. Stucki and his sense of humor. My mentor, my force majeure.
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