Shady Place

What an engaging story of a retired detective who has closed up the family home, with the help of his two adult daughters, and driven down to Florida to live out the rest of his days at Shady Place. Author David A. Byrne is off to a great start with his character Jim Phillips, who has to discover how to live and interact with people, in a world that he is not prepared to tackle alone.

If you are of a certain age you can either relate to the detective yourself, having lost a spouse and moving into a retirement community, or you can relate to the daughters, who are packing up their childhood home, after loosing a parent.  Now you have to help your living parent move on and help them continue to have a fulfilling life.

Of course the back story is that he and his wife were supposed to be making this trek together and she got sick and did not live to move into the retirement home of their dreams, well at least of her dreams.   This was not the plan that Jim had when he promised his wife to continue on without her. Of course this makes the plot flow with the cantankerous, unhappy detective not wanting to move in and not wanting to make friends in the new neighborhood.  It sets the tone for arguments with the people who want to befriend him and leads to his having to work to fit into the neighborhood.  It also creates the interactions that keep the reader guessing who the murderer is well into the novel, as he questions his relationship with each of the members of the development.

Of course against his better judgment he does get caught up in a murder that happens after he has moved in and also with his neighbor, who he adds to his suspect list, they go about trying to uncover the criminal behavior that is happening in Shady Place.  There are plenty of personalities to get to know in this new community.  There is Mike Johnson next door, who looks familiar from the crime scene in the Philadelphia precinct he just left.  There is Beverly, the attractive widow, who lives on the other side.  There are Jay and Tommy who help make up the golf foursome along with Bonnie and Lynn who the group includes in the weekly poker game.  There are also all the rules and regulations that Jim is not used to following, so he comes coming into contact with Linda who enforces the rules and also Samuel Thane, the Real Estate broker,  who is always ready to sell his home for him.  With all these characters there is bound to be trouble, arguments and even a fist fight and a car chase, except this time it is with golf carts.

Author David A. Byrne has started something clever and entertaining with this new retired detective in a retirement community called Shady Place.  There should be plenty of material to continue finding dead bodies and other crimes committed to keep Jim Phillips busy for many years to come.