Exile Trust: A Frank Cole Mystery (Frank Cole Mysteries) - Hardcover

O'Neil, Vincent H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031238064X ISBN 13: 9780312380649

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2008

Synopsis

Things are about to heat up in the sleepy town of Exile, Florida. When fact-checker Frank Cole is asked to help the Exile Bank update its safe-deposit records, it sounds like a nice, simple job. With the aid of retiree Gray Toliver, Frank starts tracking down bank customers who left the area without emptying their safe-deposit boxes.

That’s when the temperature starts to rise. Frank learns that an impostor tricked his way into the safe-deposit room a few days earlier, and that he may have emptied one of the boxes. No one can get in touch with the box owner, Dorothea Freehoffer, so Frank decides to go knock on a few doors. The mercury climbs a few more notches when Frank finds out that Dorothea died of an accidental fall shortly before the impostor visited the bank.

Frank begins to dig into the accident, only to find more questions than answers. A shady lawyer is making inquiries in Dorothea’s neighborhood. A sultry district attorney starts dogging Frank’s footsteps. A sealed envelope that Dorothea had hidden with a friend appears, but all it contains is a map of a real estate development that never happened.

Throw in a crooked geologist who disappeared in the area twenty years ago, a pair of smooth-talking land speculators, and a visitor from Frank’s past who is in no hurry to leave, and Exile is well on its way to the boiling point

The third installment of Vincent H. O'Neil's mystery series continues the story of amateur sleuth Frank Cole as he tries to identify a phantom, track down some missing bank customers, solve a murder, and earn a little Exile Trust.

About this title

About the Author

Vincent H. O’Neil holds a B.S. from West Point and an M.A. in International Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His first novel, Murder in Exile, won the St. Martin’s Minotaur/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. He lives in Cranston, Rhode Island.

From Booklist

Frank Cole, a resident of Exile, Florida, ekes out a living as a free-lance fact checker for insurance companies and local law enforcement. When the town’s bank discovers irregularities in its safe-deposit boxes, Exile chief of police Denny Dannon recommends Frank as the guy to track down the boxes’ owners, living and deceased. One box in particular proves vexing. It belonged to a recently deceased woman, but its contents were removed by a man impersonating her long-dead husband. The ensuing investigation takes Frank back 20 years to a long-dormant land deal and then circles back to the present to involve the town’s leading land developer. The third Cole mystery advances the protagonist’s character credibly, setting the table for more cases, and is populated with an intriguing cast of small-town eccentrics as well as buried motives and simmering feuds. Another very good mystery that somehow manages to mix effectively elements of both the village cozy and the hard-boiled thriller. --Wes Lukowsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 031238064X
• ISBN 13: 9780312380649
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224