Well, let me begin by saying this wasn’t my idea. Cleo Mack should’ve talked to you herself, she’s a lot more literary than I am. But she says I lived in Fairhope my entire life and was one of the first people to move into Harbor Village, before most people even heard of an active senior community. And the other residents agreed I should be the one, so. . .here I am.

My name’s Ann Slump, oldest of the five vowel siblings, so called because of our names: Ann, Evie, Irene, Olivia, and Usher. Irene’s gone now, after her tragic accident, and Olivia lives in England with that snob, but the rest of us are right here where we were born, still working our butts off. Well, not Usher, maybe, but Evie and I are at Royale Court every day. Technically my niece runs the knit shop now but she’d rather socialize than adjust a cable pattern or fix somebody’s dropped stitch for the umpteenth time, so here I am, still working. And Evie’s right next door with the miniatures, when she’s not in here with me. Usher—we call him the manager, just because we’re nice—he still relies on me for every little decision. I probably won’t ever get to retire but I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I did. You can only do so much baking, right?

I do want to say that Fairhope was a wonderful place to grow up. My daddy didn’t agree. After the nudist incident, which we don’t talk about now, he decided that the path to hell ran straight through Fairhope, but we kids loved it. There’s the bay, and the pier, and jubilees—that’s when the flounder and crabs and shrimp swim right up to shore and wait for you to pluck them out. Barely get your feet wet. And we’ve still got the Organic School, although they had to quit dissecting alligators in the lunchroom. We have Mardi Gras parades, and the tree lighting, and festivals of all kinds, like the new film festival, not to mention the most beautiful sunsets and concerts and cute little shops—I’m partial to Royale Court, of course. Flowers grow everywhere and bloom year-round, and artists and writers just naturally gravitate here. Most people are nice, even the snowbirds. I wouldn’t want to live anyplace else. Hurricanes? Well, yes, there’s that. But you have to admit they’re kind of exciting.

Now back to Cleo. She’s a nice looking woman but not what I’d call pretty, and she’s the new boss at Harbor Village. She was teaching somewhere before she got early retirement—very early, I must say—and she’s the best thing to happen here lately. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to talk to you—can’t very well brag on herself, can she?

And to be truthful, there’s some things she doesn’t know. Like how Riley follows her around with his eyes, and started coming to events if she’s going to be there. That Travis McKenzie, he’s younger and better looking but she’s through with him after he left her, twenty-some years ago, and then tricked her into taking this job. Some people say she gets that nice apartment for free but it’s not true, she pays the same as I do.

I do sometimes worry about that murder. It wasn’t Cleo’s fault, although it did happen the day she got here. I don’t think there’s any connection at all, not really, but why don’t you come see for yourself? Ask around. Who knows, you might decide to stay. Be sure you stop in at the knit shop. I’ll be right here, and there’s always a plate of cookies.

You can read more about Ann in Murder At Harbor Village, the first book in the NEW “Down by the Bay” mystery series.

Young retiree Cleo Mack is trading in academia for a second act in Harbor Village, a community for active seniors in coastal Alabama. But someone in this picture-perfect coastal town is burning the candle at both ends. . .

It’s love at first sight when Cleo arrives in Fairhope, Alabama, after taking early retirement from her longtime position as professor of social work. Touted as “the nicest town in the world,” Fairhope is home to an eclectic community of retirees. Harbor Village boasts classes in painting, pottery, and photography, not to mention being a buyer’s market for husbands. It seems an ideal place to make new friends and rediscover life. Until a dead body is found in the pool.

When the victim turns out to be the unpopular director of senior living, Cleo is named acting director. Now she must rely on her well-honed people skills to uncover a killer in a place where short-term memory isn’t what it used to be, and age is just a number. And if Cleo keeps snooping around, her number may soon be up . . .

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Meet the author
Born and raised in Alabama, G.P. Gardner earned BS and MA degrees in Psychology from the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL) and an MBA from Jacksonville State University (Jacksonville, AL). She also attended the University of Georgia (Athens, GA), where she studied biopsychology and primatology. But her heart belongs to Talladega College—an HBCU and the first educational institution in Alabama to admit students without regard to race—where she taught business. Her writing life began with short stories, some of which were published in regional literary journals and some of which won prizes. She enjoys the classic mystery writers as well as contemporary whodunits, but reads widely. She is a knitter and once owned a knit shop in Fairhope, AL. She studied mystery writing under Terry Cline, another Fairhope resident. Murder in Harbor Village is the first in her series about social worker Cleo Mack. You can visit her at gpgardner.com.

All comments are welcomed.