Me: I’m currently on a road trip from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to Oxford, Mississippi, and just made a pit stop at the cozy Tavernette on the Hembree square. My main intention here is to meet none other than Gustavo Olivera, the police chief and charming co-star of Mosey Frye Mysteries.
He’s coming in just now. Not at all what I expected, he’s a handsome guy, dressed in a smart sports jacket and straw fedora hat. Lieutenant Olivera, so nice to meet you.
Gus: Thanks for the invitation.
Me: I heard you might like an opportunity to set the record straight, uh, concerning some recent police cases in Hembree.
Gus: That’s right, I certainly would.
Me: And I promise to let you do that, but first, Lieutenant, I’m curious to know how you ended up in a small river town like Hembree. I mean—
Gus: Well, yes, I’m from Santa Clara, California, and it is sort of a stretch, but I was looking for something different. You see, I didn’t hit it off with my supervisor. He was always clipping my wings, wouldn’t let me follow through should the person of interest in a case happen to be a bigwig. I got fired, to be honest, and Hembree was the sort of place where I knew I could be my own boss.
Me: But I hear you get some interference from local real estate agent Mosey Frye, no?
Gus: Indeed. She’s my nemesis, you might say, my instrument of divine retribution. Ha!
Me: That bad, eh? But isn’t it true that Ms. Frye has provided you with some incredible leads?
Gus: I have to admit, she does seem to know Hembree history like the back of her hand, which is helpful. Between her and that step-aunt of hers, Carlotta Humphrey, there isn’t much they don’t know about the locals.
Me: In this last case, for example, seems like Mosey and her step-aunt offered you some good hints about the family of this towboat magnate Martin Eldridge. I understand it was at his former home Sunny Banks that Mosey stumbled on a body in the garage—in Ole Martin’s Tyche XL500, right?
Gus: True, but it was Carlotta who came up with the best leads. She found some old files in that big archive of hers.
Me: About the Eldridges and the Waites, wasn’t it?
Gus: That’s right. You see the Fryes—well, Mosey’s granddad and dad, and then Carlotta, Amos Frye’s step-daughter, who took over when his son Ellis died—served as attorneys for just about everybody in Hembree. I’d be a sight better off if I could get my hands on that big archive, a real treasure trove of information.
Me: But you and your sergeants managed to dig up some rather vital facts on your own—or so I’ve heard.
Gus: Oh, yes. That was quite a jaunt Springer, Reagan, and I took out to the gum brake behind the house. Prettiest place you’ve ever seen. That’s where we found the old cabin, filled with a lot of junk left by Martin’s grandson, Johnny.
Me: Sounds to me like you and Mosey make a pretty good team, with you carrying out the hard-core detective work and her filling in the gaps with the gossipy bits, stuff people would never suspect about Hembree’s upper crust.
Gus: Yes, I’m coming around to that conclusion myself.
Me: So you think you’ll stay on for a while longer? Rumor is you’re kinda sweet on the coroner, Dr. Eads McGinnis.
Gus: Let’s not let that cat out of the bag quite yet.
Me: Ha! Your face says it all, Lieutenant. It’s been great talking to you, and next time I’m here, I hope you’ll be ready to reveal a little more about that last item.
The Incident at Sunny Banks, A Mosey Frye Mysteries Book #5
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: August 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
Mosey Frye, real estate agent and amateur sleuth, comes upon a corpse in the garage at Sunny Banks, the home of local towboat magnate Martin Eldridge. Hembree police chief Lieutenant Gus Olivera tracks a lead on a man who tried to extort money from the Captain Jack crew, claiming they were intoxicated on the night of a fatal collision. But Mosey, ever inquisitive, sets her sights on the Eldridges’ distant past and ultimately reveals a more devious plot to destroy the elderly riverman’s legacy and take control of his company.
About the author
Kay has just completed her sixth Mosey Frye Mystery, soon after The Wild Rose Press published her fifth mystery The Incident at Sunny Banks (August 2023). She kicked off her series right around the time she said goodbye to the University of Arkansas following a gratifying career immersed in the realm of Spanish literature. She finds inspiration for her characters and settings from the significant moments of her life. Her time growing up in the Mississippi Delta along with her experiences as a resident of the so-called “ivory tower” have been instrumental in influencing her creative works. Books 1, 2, and 3 of the series were anthologized as Murder in High Cotton (2022). In her full-length novels The Summer House at Larkspur (2023) and The Incident at Sunny Banks (2023), the author showcases the growth of Hembree, Arkansas’s police chief Gus Olivera and the quick-witted real estate agent turned amateur sleuth, Mosey Frye.