Frank Cole is laying low in the Panhandle of sunny Florida, working as a fact-checker for an insurance company while he awaits an appeal. The job doesn't offer much responsibility, which is exactly what he wants. Plus, it manages to keep his analytical mind busy so that he's not obsessing over his uncertain future. It seems like a nice setup for the time being, but things don't go as planned. Eddie Gonzalez, a young man who only recently bought life insurance, is killed in a hit-and-run accident. The insurance company hires Frank to look into Eddie's life. Frank thinks the company is just trying to get out of paying the money and he sets out to prove the legitimacy of the claim. In doing so, he manages to ruffle the feathers of Dennis Dannon, the chief of police and a friend of the Gonzalez family, and to bring threats down upon his own head. As Frank looks further into the case, it becomes clear that Eddie's death was not an accident, and that the killers actually had another target in mind. Vincent H. O'Neil makes a stunning debut with this first mystery, the winner of the Malice Domestic Contest. With a likable sleuth and top-notch plotting, Murder in Exile is a welcome and exciting addition to the genre.

Murder in Exile: A Frank Cole Mystery

Literature & Fiction

O'Neil, Vincent H.

Contemporary

Minotaur Books

Frank Cole, bankrupt businessman and sometime sleuth, has taken a second job with the Midnight Taxi Service in Exile, Florida, when one of the drivers tells him about a teenage boy who hailed his cab near the site of a police drug bust the night before. It doesn't sound like much at first, but the driver disappears just as people start coming by the cabstand inquiring after the mysterious passenger. First there is the private investigator from Atlanta, who seems genuine but knows the kid by the wrong name. Then there are the two bounty hunters from Mobile, who have the right name but are wrong in every other way. And finally there is the kid's girlfriend, a blond drifter who never leaves a fingerprint. As if that all weren't enough to ruin Frank's night job, a body turns up holding a Midnight Taxi Service roadmap. And once again Frank Cole has to find the answers without even knowing the questions. In this entertaining sequel to his first novel, Vincent H. O'Neil takes his readers on a dark Florida taxi ride with his likable sleuth.

Reduced Circumstances: A Frank Cole Mystery

Things are about to heat up in the sleepy town of Exile, Florida. When fact-checker Frank Cole is asked to help the Exile Bank update its safe-deposit records, it sounds like a nice, simple job. With the aid of retiree Gray Toliver, Frank starts tracking down bank customers who left the area without emptying their safe-deposit boxes. 
That’s when the temperature starts to rise. Frank learns that an impostor tricked his way into the safe-deposit room a few days earlier, and that he may have emptied one of the boxes. No one can get in touch with the box owner, Dorothea Freehoffer, so Frank decides to go knock on a few doors. The mercury climbs a few more notches when Frank finds out that Dorothea died of an accidental fall shortly before the impostor visited the bank. 
Frank begins to dig into the accident, only to find more questions than answers. A shady lawyer is making inquiries in Dorothea’s neighborhood. A sultry district attorney starts dogging Frank’s footsteps. A sealed envelope that Dorothea had hidden with a friend appears, but all it contains is a map of a real estate development that never happened. 
Throw in a crooked geologist who disappeared in the area twenty years ago, a pair of smooth-talking land speculators, and a visitor from Frank’s past who is in no hurry to leave, and Exile is well on its way to the boiling point
The third installment of Vincent H. O'Neil's mystery series continues the story of amateur sleuth Frank Cole as he tries to identify a phantom, track down some missing bank customers, solve a murder, and earn a little Exile Trust.

Exile Trust: A Frank Cole Mystery (Frank Cole Mysteries)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

The sleepy Florida Panhandle town of Exile is now home to the extremely downsized life of Frank Cole, a former computer company CEO who caught a bum deal in bankruptcy court.  Now living on next to nothing as a fact-checker for insurance companies, Frank is cynical and weary, but still savvy enough to spot something rotten with his newest assignment.A college student, killed in a hit-and-run accident, had recently taken out a large life insurance policy.  As Frank digs into the suspicious circumstances, he begins to suspect the young man was simply a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, mistaken for the real target, a high-profile businessman.  The claim is legit.  But the closer Frank gets to untangling the twisted truth behind murder and corruption, the tighter the noose around his own neck becomes.

Murder in Exile (Frank Cole, Book 1)

Worldwide Library Worldwide Mysteries

Mystery paperback is a Frank Cole mystery with a Florida background.

Reduced Circumstances

Business

Worldwide

2008 GALE/THORNDIKE PRESS LARGE PRINT GLOSSY HARDCOVER

Exile Trust (Thorndike Press Large Print Mystery Series)

United States

Thorndike Pr

When we last saw Frank Cole in EXILE TRUST, he'd solved a twenty year-old murder and had also helped his good friend Gray Toliver uncover a plot to break into the Exile town bank's safe deposit area. He was still saddled with the massive debt from his bankruptcy, was still working as a low-paid fact-checker, and was still dating local photographer Beth Ann Thibedault. In CONTEST OF WILLS, Frank gets a new job, a new friend, and a new case:When Frank signs on as a fact-checker for a Tallahassee law firm, he has no idea what's in store for him. The firm's lead investigator, brash Jimmy Hanigan, quickly introduces him to the darker side of private investigations work. Then the firm's owner, Walter Daley, tells them that his old friend and client Chester Pratt has died of a prescription drug interaction-and that Pratt's will is missing. Frank and Jimmy soon discover that everyone named in the missing will was at Pratt's birthday party the night he died, and that he'd already had a close call with the same medication months before. Frank's photographer girlfriend Beth Ann steps in when Frank and Jimmy get hold of the pictures from the birthday party, and her help doesn't end in the darkroom: Against Frank's wishes, Jimmy Hanigan soon has her working undercover in places where he and Frank would be recognized.As the trio dig deeper into the case, they learn that Pratt's death may have indeed been an accident, that no one in his family seems to want his fortune, and that an old nemesis from Frank's first case is dogging their steps. In no time at all, it's a true Contest of Wills in sunny Florida.

Contest of Wills: A Frank Cole Mystery (Frank Cole Mysteries)

O'Neil, Henry V.

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The Jerome Barron Players have a problem. Their writer, Ryan Betancourt, has killed himself under mysterious circumstances and they need a replacement right away. The Players, unofficially known as Death Troupe, come together once a year to perform a high-end murder mystery play written specifically for that season’s host town. Their writer has to possess special talents, as there’s a wager involved: If the townspeople can correctly identify the murderer before the show’s final act, they don’t have to pay for the engagement. So far, no town has ever won the bet. Enter Jack Glynn, original writer for the Barron Players. He and Ryan wrote two Death Troupe engagements before Ryan stole Jack’s girlfriend, lead actress Allison Green. Although Jack found fame in Hollywood after quitting the troupe, eccentric director Jerome Barron convinces him to return for one show: The upcoming engagement in the Adirondack town of Schuyler Mills. It is only then that the troupe’s advance man, private investigator Wade Parker, tells Jack of the strange events which surrounded the group’s previous engagement in Red Bend, California. A local retiree killed himself a few days after the performance—an act Wade suspects was prompted by the storyline of Ryan’s final play. He also reveals that Ryan was greatly unnerved by anonymous third parties who had interfered with the group’s marquee clue distribution. This is one of the unique features of Death Troupe: As the performance approaches, clues are sprinkled through the town in a variety of ways, from fake headstones bearing characters’ names to real players acting out their assigned roles. In Red Bend, a stranger pretending to be a troupe member had dropped clues that were surprisingly accurate, and Ryan had reacted badly to this—perhaps badly enough to kill himself. Events take a sinister turn shortly after Jack arrives in the small, snow-covered village of Schuyler Mills. Someone leaves a bizarre arrangement of black roses and plastic skulls in his hotel room. Ryan’s missing notebook from the Red Bend engagement turns up, and it contains an alarming tale of psychological harassment. The people of Schuyler Mills are enthusiastic about Jack’s presence, but he knows that many of them, from the local community theater group to the town mayor, could have ulterior motives.As the weeks go by, someone begins distributing clues that Jack doesn’t recognize, from a plastic head stuck in an ice-fishing hole to confidential information scrawled on a billboard. Reading Ryan’s notebook, Jack begins to fear that the same web that snared his old writing partner in Red Bend is being spun around him in Schuyler Mills.

Death Troupe

LIVE MORE AUTHENTICALLY Something that is authentic is genuine. When we lead authentic lives, it means our thoughts and actions reflect our values and our personalities.This book offers advice for leading an existence that is more genuine. Along with that, it provides techniques for managing your time, solving problems, staying organized, and other important life skills.The steps on this path have existed for a long time. It's an unused path because much of what this book contains isn't as well known as it once was.Let's walk some of it now.

The Unused Path: Skills for living an authentic life

Self-Help

Motivational

FNG Press

In the future, robots do all the work and there is no need for jobs or money. Everyone gets just about everything they want, and the government emphasizes societal contentment.Some people seek more purpose in their lives, and feel they found this in a philosophy called The Unused Path. The belief system stresses self-discovery, and the government is starting to see it is a threat to contentment.And anything that challenges the social order is not tolerated.

A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

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