Hi, there! I’m Blanche Murninghan, part-time journalist and part-time beach bum. My T-shirt is stiff with salt, my pockets are full of sand.

All in all, my life is pretty idyllic. I love waking up to the sound of the waves outside my cabin on Tuna Street, but lately the island life has gotten pretty hectic. The Chicago goons have come to town. They’re determined to tear down our beach cottages and turn Santa Maria Island into an enclave of pink and turquoise McMansions, and the idyllic life seems destined to become a nightmare. We are always happy to host our northern snowbirds but not when they are sporting bulldozers. This is really bugging me, but I’m sure Bob, Liza, Jack, and I can figure it out. This island runs a tight ship.

Anyhoo, my friend Bertie just got back from Michigan, and she dropped off that lovely cinnamon-raisin bread. My friend Liza plans to come by and have a tequila with me on my porch later. That’s a nice spot with a view of the white sand and turquoise water. I’ve got a number of pines in front to the cabin, and I’m telling you, between the wind whistling in those treetops, and the parrots making a racket, it’s a regular symphony of sorts out there. My cousin Jack and I inherited the cabin from Gran, who was a real pip—ran a small store out of here with her husband, Jack, a pirate who disappeared a long time ago. Jack III, my so-called cousin-brother, seems to have inherited a lot of his grandfather’s traits. He loves to swim with the sharks out to Gull Egg key, and now he is running a trucking business between Texas and Chicago. Something funny going on there, if you ask me. But he hasn’t asked me. We just fight a lot, and laugh.

My friend, Bob Blankenship, is a realtor extraordinaire here on Santa Maria Island. And he’s unusual for a realtor. He is totally against this tear-down expansion on the island. We’re going to lose our cottages and local businesses, the bird habitats, our manatees that hang out at the Peel ‘n Eat pier. It’s all we can do to hold off this wholesale Chicago smash-down of Santa Maria Island. Sergi Langstrom, one of the developers, a preening Bradley Cooper look-alike with none of his charm, is running around trying to convince our neighbors that it’s his way or the highway. That’s not going so well. We have a town hall coming up, and I have a thing or two to say to Mr. Langstrom. I’m telling you, life is getting complicated. Again, I, Blanche Murninghan, am having none of it. And, of course, Jack isn’t either. Or Liza. Sometimes developers have a hankering for laundering their darn drug money through their nefarious building schemes. I’m just saying. I have a naturally paranoid nature, sometimes, or, as my boss at the Island Times calls it, morbid curiosity, but I have my antennae out. Nothing good can come of this so-called development.

Well, after trying to punch out a couple of stories at the Times, and a walk on the beach at four o’clock (the best time of the day when it’s cooler and the birds come out for their cocktail hour), I’m headed over to Cap’s for some lentil soup, or, if I’m lucky, crab claws. Season opened up, and Cap is a master at preparing this treat. He gets out there on the water at five every morning to fish and set his traps. He’s my beloved adopted grandpa, my mentor, guardian, support. Gran asked him to keep an eye on me, and I used to resent it. But how can I? They are the loves of my life, and life is pretty good. I just hope it stays that way. Wish me luck.

Saving Tuna Street (A Blanche Murninghan Mystery) is first in the series, coming June 23, 2020 from Light Messages Publishing. From Tuna Street on Santa Maria Island, Blanche will go next to Mexico City. Other installments in the series will take her to Vietnam, Ireland, Spain, and Argentina.

Blanche “Bang” Murninghan is a part-time journalist with writer’s block and a penchant for walking the beach on her beloved Santa Maria Island. All is well. Until the land-grabbing goons arrive. Blanche finds herself in a tailspin, flabbergasted that so many things can go so wrong, so fast.

Her friend, Bob Blankenship is found murdered in the parking lot of the marina, and she suspects the slick, handsome land developer Sergi Langstrom and his company of chaos are behind it all. Blanche keeps digging. All the way to hell. The goons, it seems, are a front for a drug cartel. The harder Blanche pushes against the source of trouble, the more she is sucked into the vortex of greed, murder, drug runners, and kidnapping (hers).

The appearance of the mysterious Haasi, a tiny Native American with glossy braids and dark eyes, complicates things, and it’s a good thing. She appears and disappears but always ends up at Blanche’s side. They all keep getting closer to the sources of the spurious land development and the murder and the drug running. Who can look away? It’s like watching a hurricane, which, literally, comes straight for Tuna Street.

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Meet the author
Nancy Nau Sullivan is a former newspaper journalist and English teacher. She taught at a boys’ prison in Florida, in Argentina, and in the Peace Corps in Mexico. She returned to the setting of her memoir, The Last Cadillac, to write Saving Tuna Street, her first mystery. She lives in Northwest Indiana and, often, anywhere near water. Visit her website at nancynausullivan.com.

All comments are welcomed.