Margins
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Ben Abbott Mysteries
Series · 5 books · 1994-2007

Books in series

HardScape book cover
#1

HardScape

1994

Benjamin Abbott returns to his hometown to save his family's recession-battered real estate business, never dreaming that things are about the heat up in picturesque Newbury, Connecticut. Broke and looking for some excitement, Ben takes a job videotaping the adulterous goings-on in a bedroom in Jack and Rita Long's "castle." But he doesn't bargain on becoming embroiled in the murder of Rita Long's friend. A second murder closer to home propels Ben to embark on a new career as a neophyte detective and leads him to encounter answers that will put him in mortal danger.
Stonedust book cover
#2

Stonedust

1995

Investigating the death of a childhood playmate who may have attended an exclusive party, Ben Abbott searches for clues among his ninety-year-old aunt, his sometime lover, a state police detective, and two deadly housebreakers. 20,000 first printing. Tour.
FrostLine book cover
#3

FrostLine

1998

When Newbury’s newest resident, ex-diplomat Harry King, the close confidant of Kissinger and reputed to have been heavily involved in the Vietnam War, summons real estate agent Ben Abbott to his new McMansion, Ben dreams of big dollar signs. The commission from selling the Fox Trot estate would be huge. But King doesn’t want Ben’s selling expertise, he wants him to act as a mediator between him and his troublesome neighbour, surly Vietnam vet Ronnie Butler. A strip of Butler’s land cuts straight into King’s estate like a knife, acting as a red flag for two neighbors who are as ornery and quarrelsome as a pair of rival bulls. In fact, the testoserone is flowing heavier than the waters in the stream King is damming up for a picturesque lake. Before Ben can mediate, an explosion rocks a lavish party on the Fox Trot lawn. The blast blows up the dam—and Butler’s ex-con son, Dickie, along with it. Butler, an army-trained sapper, is arrested for setting the dynamite. Ben, whose childhood friend Dickie had tried his patience and loyalty many times before, refuses to accept Butler’s guilt. Besides, too many things don’t add up. Could it be the work of terrorists? Of one of the many groups holding a grudge against King? Or just someone with his own ax to grind? With the Feds on the scene, caught in state and local law enforcement jockeying, Ben negotiates an unpopular course through the usual minefield of his various loyalties to friends, family and lovers, of whom there are plenty....
McMansion book cover
#4

McMansion

2006

Even the cozy New England town of Newbury, Connecticut, is not immune to the relentless spread of McMansions carpeting the countryside. Ben Abbott, realtor and private detective, is so incensed that he refuses to sell them. That Ben is not the only citizen of Newbury who is provoked by over-sized, ugly, wasteful houses becomes apparent when the corpse of Billy Tiller, Newbury's greediest developer, is discovered underneath his bulldozer. The young and troubled eco-activist Jeff Kimball, who is arrested while sitting at the controls of the bulldozer, protests his innocence. Connecticut's state's attorney sees the opportunity to prosecute an open-and-shut TV murder trial that will vault him into the U.S. Senate. While Ira Levy, the small-town criminal defense lawyer hired by Jeff's hip-hop mogul father, longs to impress movers and shakers in New York City. Ben Abbott, deep in debt to Attorney Levy for an expensive horse he gave to 12-year-old Alison, is forced to pay off the debt by trying to prove Jeff Kimball innocent of a crime that State Police Major Crime Squad Lieutenant Marian Boyce styles "perpetrator on bulldozer on victim." It looks that way, says Ben Abbott. But in what order did they really stack up?
Mausoleum book cover
#5

Mausoleum

2007

When Newbury, Connecticut's three-hundred-yea- old village cemetery is invaded by a gaudy, half-million dollar mausoleum, Ben Abbott is not happy. Newcomer Brian Grose's tall, wide, mirror-polished eruption of eternal ego sticks out in the peaceful burying ground like a McMansion in an apple orchard. Ben's fellow drinkers at the bar have nicknamed the monstrosity McTomb. But no one expected to find Brian's body locked in his mausoleum, fifty years ahead of schedule. Then Homeland Security Immigration Criminal Enforcement agents descend on Newbury hunting for Charlie Cubrero, an illegal immigrant farm hand and supposed gang leaderwho bought a gun after he was stiffed for fifty bucks by Brian Grose. Ben Abbott doesn't buy it. Half the town was in the graveyard celebrating Newbury's Tercentennial when Brian was shot and most of them were mad at him. Besides, Ben admires the hard working Charlie. And he fears that the news that the illegal worked for the Village Cemetery Association will destroy the venerable society already torn asunder by suing and counter-suing anti-mausoleum traditionalists and pro-mausoleum insurgents.

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Ben Abbott Mysteries