Grumpy Old Man is a hilarious satire on modern day life in the East Bay Area of San Francisco. (Think #Carl Hiaasen writing about California, not Florida) It’s also a perplexing murder mystery that takes place during and after the Pandemic.
When millionaire land owner Ramsay Marshall turns up dead in Lake Tahoe waters, his daughter Sophia suspects foul play. She hires Palmer Doyle, a disabled Afghan War vet turned private investigator.
Sophia and Palmer have history. Fifteen years ago, in Afghanistan, when Palmer was injured in a bomb explosion Sophia was the Army trauma nurse who pieced Palmer back together. There was a spark between them then but both were married.
Now years later both of their spouses are deceased; Sophia and Palmer are single and the spark between them is alive. Still attracted to Sophia and determined to win her favor, Palmer puts his staff of oddball Investigators on the case. There is a lot at stake. Ramsay’s estate is worth $50 Million dollars, maybe more?
Grumpy Old Man is fast-paced mesmerizing thriller, full of humor, slapstick comedy, and oddball plot twists that will keep you glued to the last page. #gamblingaddict #bikinibarista #californiahomeless #sushimurders #doglovers #mystery #pandemic
Grumpy Old Man is a hilarious satire on modern day life in the East Bay Area of San Francisco. (Think #Carl Hiaasen writing about California, not Florida) It’s also a perplexing murder mystery that takes place during and after the Pandemic.
When millionaire land owner Ramsay Marshall turns up dead in Lake Tahoe waters, his daughter Sophia suspects foul play. She hires Palmer Doyle, a disabled Afghan War vet turned private investigator.
Sophia and Palmer have history. Fifteen years ago, in Afghanistan, when Palmer was injured in a bomb explosion Sophia was the Army trauma nurse who pieced Palmer back together. There was a spark between them then but both were married.
Now years later both of their spouses are deceased; Sophia and Palmer are single and the spark between them is alive. Still attracted to Sophia and determined to win her favor, Palmer puts his staff of oddball Investigators on the case. There is a lot at stake. Ramsay’s estate is worth $50 Million dollars, maybe more?
Grumpy Old Man is fast-paced mesmerizing thriller, full of humor, slapstick comedy, and oddball plot twists that will keep you glued to the last page. #gamblingaddict #bikinibarista #californiahomeless #sushimurders #doglovers #mystery #pandemic
Grumpy Old Man
A novel
By Tom Lyons
June 2021
Not for one second did Ramsay Marshall think that this morning when he woke that today was the day he would die.
But dying he was. And there was nothing that he or his fifty Million dollar fortune could do to save him. Unable to control his bodily functions, he peed through his silver silk pajamas, a ridiculous looking Hugh Hefner outfit, then he shat himself before continuing the uncontrollable bouncing, twitching dance-of-the-zombie that his body was now performing.
An hour earlier he had just finished his sushi and avocado toast breakfast and had felt great. How could he not have? Sushi was his favorite food. His fifty foot Seabreeze cruiser “Lucy in the Sky” lay moored in twenty five feet of clear blue water near Sand Harbor Beach on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
Water was so clear he could see jagged rocks and white sand on the bottom. It was a Tahoe postcard summer morning; a cloudless cobalt blue sky, the sun rising over Squaw in the West, warming the air but doing little to heat Tahoe’s frigid waters. Ramsay leaned on the side of the boat and took a deep breath. A scent of pine carried on the breeze; overhead red tailed hawks flapped and screeched while searching the water for fish skimming the surface. Ready to swoop down.
Ramsay was not a boat person, yet his yacht was decked with the latest technology. It sported twin inboard diesels for long trips, like his favorite, cruising to Cabo. It had solar panels for all electrical needs, such as the Sub Zero fridge, for Ramsay’s five hundred dollars a bottle Cabernet, WiFi, Satellite radio, and a fifty six inch widescreen TV, mounted over the circular bed in the master suite. A double fiberglass V bottom hull made ‘Lucy’ easy to handle in choppier waters than one would normally find here in the lake. Ramsay was not a fisherman either, slime disgusted him and a fishy smell turned his sensitive nose, but he made sure that the latest Garmin CHIRP sonar technology fish finder was installed. Now he could see thousands of those “slimy little fuckers” at the push of a button. Plus, sport fishing had grown in popularity since the end of the pandemic. The Tesla of boats. Ramsay liked to use it for his “excursions” where he was safe from the jealous eyes of his third wife, Jojo, a bleached blond forty years his junior.
Ramsay had recently turned seventy-five, but he looked ten years older. His skin looked lizard-like, creased and lined; sun damaged with liver spots and wrinkled, especially on his face and eyes, as if he had been lying in midday summer sun covered in cooking oil his entire life. Decades of heavy drinking had mapped red canals of broken blood vessels on his nose. Reminded one of Rudolph the red nose reindeer. He was thin, emaciated looking, with a two-day old white stubble trailing down his turkey-jowl neck. A decade’s old biker tattoo adorned his left calf. Ramsay knew that his tattoo looked asinine.
Nothing looks as foolish as an old person with one stupid faded tattoo.
His most notable feature, besides his red bulbous nose, was his mid-back length white stringy hair that this morning he had banded in a pony. He hadn’t washed it in a week; smelled like an unwashed dog. Had it not been banded in a pony, if it hung loose around his face he would have looked like a medieval dungeon keeper. Pencil-thin legs poked from the bottom of his Hefner robe: Ramsay fancied himself a playboy, but truth be told, he looked ridiculous - a septuagenarian Bozo the clown.
A few steps down from the rear deck a beautiful twenty-five year old woman with an hourglass figure lay face down, naked and asleep on the large circular bed.
“What an incredible ass.” Ramsay said looking at her with lecherous old man eyes. Plucked her from the website specifically for the pictures of her bottom.
Worth the twenty-five hundred.
Called herself Panama; said she was born and raised there. Exotic looking with perfect skin and dark brown almond shaped eyes. Must be some Asian in her lineage. Panama had a bountiful bosom, thin waist and that absolutely world-class feminine ass.
Probably Mexican. Jumped a fence somewhere to get into the States. Passing herself off as something more exotic.
The alcohol they had consumed robbed him of his memory of what had happened the previous evening but the sweet soreness he felt told him that there was a happy ending, for him at least.
Two R95 respiratory masks, the kind that hospital workers use as part of their personal protection equipment, or PPE, were on the table next to the breakfast dishes.
The best money can buy, that stinkin’ Chineee virus can’t live up here in the Tahoe.
As he took in the incredible views over the lake something in his body didn’t feel quite right. What did she give me last night? He tried to shake his head clear.
“Alexa, play Ella Fitzgerald.” Music might help. His tongue wasn’t working right, caught on his last word. Hair of the dog, he thought.
“Playing Blue Skies by Ella Fitzgerald.” Alexa said.
Blue skies, smiling’ at me
Nothin’ but blue skies do I see
Bluebirds singing a song
Nothin’ but bluebirds all day long
Never saw the sun shinin’ so bright
Never saw things lookin’ so right ….
Ramsay tried to fix himself a Bloody Mary but the fingers of his right hand felt stiff, they wouldn’t move. Tried with his left hand, that hand was frozen too. Like trying to snap your fingers and missing.
“Hmmph?” His tongue felt swollen, like a balloon. His jaw felt numb.
Ella sang on.
Tingling started in his shoulders then snaked its way down both his arms. The tingling turned into numbness; felt like when the dentist gives you Novocain before a root canal. Soon he could not move his arms, they lay useless pinned to his side. Forget his legs. They didn’t work at all. Had him bouncing. He started the dance of the Zombie. This didn’t feel like a heart attack, he’d already had three of those, he knew what a heart attack felt like. Doctors put stents in, no, this didn’t feel like a heart attack at all. Ramsay had heard about the things that run through your mind when you realize that you are about to die. That your entire life passes before you. Like you are watching it in 3D with surround sound on an IMAX screen.
Ramsay had no such thoughts, instead he raged:
What’s happening to me?
He tried to walk below decks, but stiff as an ironing board the twitching and bouncing held him in its grasp. He spun like a top, arms pinned to his sides, pin balling off the boat’s safety rails; Bozo the clown performing the Zombie dance, a Looney Tunes cartoon character. The paralysis traveled to his lungs, he couldn’t breathe. He felt dizzy, lightheaded. His face twisted into a scary Halloween mask, his body ready to go full tilt. His sense of smell, however, was not impaired. The stench of his own shit and piss hit him full on. His stomach lurched; he vomited; emitting retching sounds like a cow giving birth. He tried to yell, through the open doorway to the bedroom, to rouse Panama, a little gurgle and frothy bloody bubbles was all that escaped his mouth. She lay asleep on her belly oblivious to his cartoonish thrashings. The curve of her marvelous ass was the last thing that he saw. His brain, however, was working full speed and after seeing Panama he thought: Shit. All that Viagra I just bought is gonna go to waste. He felt himself getting an erection. He pinged one final time off the railing at the rear of his boat.
“Fook muh.” He managed to gurgle.
Ramsay Marshall then toppled like a jerking stone statue, erection intact, and pitched from his beautiful yacht into the frigid waters of Lake Tahoe.
Though the lake was littered with boats at their moorings, many more boats than usual, no one heard or saw Ramsay topple into the water.
Overhead hawks flapped their wings and screeched.
“Play more Ella Fitzgerald?” Alexa asked.
The death of multi-millionaire Ramsay Marshall is not a huge surprise. He was only seventy-five, but the heart attacks he previously suffered made him look and act like a much older man. When he is found dead it is assumed to be a fatal heart attack, but his daughter, Sophia, thinks it is murder. She hires ex-military sergeant Palmer Doyle’s investigations company to find the truth. Doyle International begins to look into Marshall’s death and will hopefully sort out the huge inheritance of Sophia and her slimy step-brother, Brad.
Palmer and Sophia have a past. She helped nurse him back to health after he was injured in the war. It was a brief encounter, but she made a big impression. Palmer wonders if they can become close once again as his team begins to investigate the case. Each of the eclectic investigators he has assembled brings something of value to the company. Dakota is a tattooed, pierced, purple haired computer whiz. John, nicknamed Sharkie due to his oddly pointed teeth, has snapping turtles for pets and has a serious problem with hemorrhoids and is perfect for gathering information. Then there is Meghan the secretary – she keeps this ragtag group on task and holds a secret torch for Palmer.
This fast-paced satire is entertaining, interesting and has an unexpected ending. The quirky characters and solid plot are woven together to create a fantastic novel. If you are a fan of Tim Dorsey, you will love Grumpy Old Man. Full disclosure – this novel does contain sexual situations.
Tom J. Lyons is the author of several books. This is the first book I have read by this author and sincerely hope there will be a sequel or an entire series. I cannot get enough of these characters.
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: I have a material connection because I received a review copy for free from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for a fair and honest review. Copyright © 2021 Laura Hartman