Bogey Bay Golf Club's local champion, Ray Kelly, is enjoying the good life in the scenic Ozarks. He owns a beautiful home on Lake Table Rock, has been married to his college sweetheart for more than thirty years, and is the office manager for a local insurance agency in Shell Knob, Missouri. What could possibly go wrong?
Kelly's life takes an ugly turn when it is intersected by an immigrant family that has moved into a cave less than a mile from his house. He is also troubled by the sinister shadow of a Kansas City criminal organization that threatens his position at the local insurance office. And then there is the tawdry marital affair.
The site where one murder victim is found near Bogey Bay leads Barry County Sheriff Ben Kramer to the discovery of a second victim only a few miles away. He gathers pertinent evidence, evaluates the likely suspects, and works with his team of deputies to solve the case.
Bogey Bay Golf Club's local champion, Ray Kelly, is enjoying the good life in the scenic Ozarks. He owns a beautiful home on Lake Table Rock, has been married to his college sweetheart for more than thirty years, and is the office manager for a local insurance agency in Shell Knob, Missouri. What could possibly go wrong?
Kelly's life takes an ugly turn when it is intersected by an immigrant family that has moved into a cave less than a mile from his house. He is also troubled by the sinister shadow of a Kansas City criminal organization that threatens his position at the local insurance office. And then there is the tawdry marital affair.
The site where one murder victim is found near Bogey Bay leads Barry County Sheriff Ben Kramer to the discovery of a second victim only a few miles away. He gathers pertinent evidence, evaluates the likely suspects, and works with his team of deputies to solve the case.
1
Contending for the Championship
Saturday, October 20
On a windy Saturday in October, an enthusiastic band of golfers, striving to become their club’s new champion, crisscrossed the fairways at Bogey Bay Golf Course. It was the second day of an annual event featuring a small dose of athletic skill coupled with a generous display of bluster and braggadocio. Only a handful of players had any legitimate chance of winning the trophy. For others, the day was more about the show than the dough. They loved the game and would never think of sitting out the final competitive tournament of the year.
Thirty-four club members signed up for this year’s championship. They ranged in age from thirty-one to seventy-seven. Ray Kelly, who had won last year’s trophy, was favored to repeat. Now in his early fifties, Ray held a single-digit handicap and was known by his peers as being the best shot-maker at Bogey Bay. His form was solid, and his swing was an art form. It would take an exceptional round of golf for anyone to upset the red-headed Irishman who now called Missouri his home.
The opening day’s round on Friday had gone as most of the members had expected. Ray led the field with a sizzling 66, six strokes under par, and a three-stroke lead over Richard Andrews, his nearest competitor. Two other players, John Pearce and Hank Cobble, each trailing Ray by five shots, were also in contention. However, a morning weather forecast, warning golfers of windy conditions for Saturday’s final round, hinted that Mother Nature could possibly play a role in determining this year’s champion.
Ray and Richard, the tournament leaders, were paired to play together in the shotgun finale. Twenty minutes before their scheduled 10:00 o’clock tee time, the two rivals took a few last-minute putts on the practice green.
“We haven’t seen winds like this since March,” Ray said, as he admired a fifteen-foot putt Richard had rolled straight into the cup. “Iron play to the greens will be a little tricky this afternoon.”
“I’m not too worried about it,” Richard replied. “I spent two months this summer adjusting to the trade winds in Maui. Compared to those gusts, today just feels a little breezy.”
We’ll see, Ray mused as he digested Richard’s smug response. “Hope you play well today, Richard,” he said disingenuously as he walked toward his golf cart.
“Me too,” Richard mumbled under his breath. The two men had never been the best of friends.
“Gentlemen, this is your five-minute call to the starter’s station on hole number one,” announced Pete Northfield, the club’s head professional. “Five-minute call.”
A few stragglers quickly stroked their last putts on the practice green, then hurried to their golf carts, threw putters into their bags, and made their way to the first tee box. The parade was about to begin. Ray made a precautionary count of his clubs. Fourteen was the maximum number allowed and he dared not have more. He could imagine Richard accusing him of a rules infraction that might disqualify Ray from winning the championship. Fourteen, he counted. Bring it on!
Bogey Bay was a private golf club, nestled in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The championship golf course had been artfully carved out of a heavily timbered tract of land abutting Table Rock Lake. Designed by the legendary course architect, Art Dunnigan, Bogey Bay opened in 2009 to rave reviews from golf journalists. Each year, the course was rated as one of the top five in Missouri and no one could find fault with those ratings.
A few years before the course was opened, developers had begun building beautiful homes tucked into the woods surrounding the greens and fairways of Bogey Bay. From their backyard patios, residents were able to monitor the daily flow of golfers. Ray and his wife Harriet owned such a home; a four-bedroom, native stone house overlooking the seventeenth green.
Now standing next to his golf cart on an elevated tee box, Ray surveyed the spectacular panorama surrounding the first fairway. The 395-yard hole, protected by two fairway sand bunkers, sloped gently down toward the lake. He never grew tired of the view. In the spring, pink and white blossoms on the dogwood trees, interspersed with a scattering of native redbuds, provided colorful highlights against a palette of natural green foliage.
Autumn had a beauty of its own. A canopy of red, orange, and yellow leaves, anticipating a change in the season, hung loosely on the wooden fingers of the maple, elm, and hickory trees. It was Ray’s favorite time of the year. His fascination with the scenery, however, was momentarily interrupted by the familiar voice of Pete Northfield.
“Use the scorecards on your carts, but also record your scores on Golf Genius,” Pete instructed the players who had gathered to begin the day’s round. “You will receive 100 percent of your handicap and all putts are to be holed out. No gimmies and there is no maximum score on any given hole. Any questions?” There was no response. “All right, gentlemen, have a good round today. Remember to keep a steady pace of play. After the round, we’ll see you back in the clubhouse for burgers and a trophy presentation. Good luck! Play well.”
And with that, the competitors were off. Golf carts spread out in all directions as the players drove to their respective tee boxes to begin play. Ray and Richard, having shot the best scores on Friday, were assigned hole number one as their starting point. After showing each other the personal identification markings on their golf balls, they exchanged a fist bump and put on their game faces.
By virtue of his being Friday’s medalist, Ray won the honor of hitting the first drive of the final round. He pulled out his trustworthy Callaway Epic Driver from the golf bag and bent over to push a tee into the ground. Then he placed a new Callaway Chrome Soft X ball on top of the tee and took a step back to visualize the shot. When breezy, swing easy, he reminded himself of the golfers’ adage. If he were able to place his tee shot safely down the middle of the first fairway, the soft flutter of butterflies in his stomach would soon subside. He had been here before.
Watching Ray hit a golf ball was like watching a ballet. The movement through the backswing was fluid and the thrust downward with the clubhead was powerful and precise. The ball had no choice but to respond willingly to his artistic command. Because of the wind, Ray launched his tee shot with less trajectory than normal, but it still covered two hundred and eighty yards before coming to rest in the center of the fairway. The drive had left him only one hundred and fifteen yards to the center of the green.
“The box is yours,” Ray said to Richard, stepping aside to allow his opponent an opportunity to match a perfect drive.
Richard appeared to be fearless, eager to show the defending champion that he had come to play his best golf of the year. With no hesitation, he straddled the ball on its tee, gave a mighty swing, and watched as the dimpled sphere soared into the air, bounding past Ray’s ball and coming to rest slightly less than a hundred yards from the green. It was a prodigious drive and served as a warning of Richard’s intent to wrest the club’s trophy from Ray’s hands.
In the clubhouse, Pete Northfield monitored the action on the course through the players’ postings on Golf Genius. He surmised that the wind was likely a factor in the scores being somewhat higher than they had been the day before. After having played nine holes, none of the contestants had shot below par. Ray’s lead over Richard had been cut to two strokes, but the other contenders had fallen back from the leaders and had no viable chance of winning the championship. It had become a two-man match.
When Ray three-putted the sixteenth green for a bogey, Richard stood on the seventeenth tee box, trailing the current champion by one stroke. Up one, with two holes to play, Ray thought to himself as he watched his opponent select an iron from his bag. Seventeen was one of the more difficult par-three holes on the course. The oblong green sat on a peninsula, jutting into a small cove of the lake. The distance was only one hundred seventy yards from tee to green, but the tee shot had to be made almost entirely over water. Variable wind gusts added another risk factor to a player’s hitting the ball safely onto the green.
Richard took a few extra practice swings before addressing the ball that was teed up and ready to be launched. Finally, he brought back the club, lifting it high in the air, and came down with the clubhead passing parallel to the spread of his stance. It was excellent form. The ball responded in a predictable fashion, arcing high into the sky and coming to rest no more than five feet from the pin. A broad smile flashed across Richard’s face as he walked toward the cart path and audibly expelled a sigh of relief.
The seventeenth tee box was familiar territory for Ray. He had stood on it many times over the past ten years. His house sat across the lake in a stand of oak and hickory trees, and only a few yards from the nexus that joined the jutting golf green to the mainland. During the summer and early fall months, when the sun set later in the day, Ray used the seventeenth hole as his personal practice area. He often hit dozens of golf balls from the tee box to the green. The hole belonged to Ray, as if he, himself, had been its designer.
Consequently, Ray did not need to think twice about his club selection. Only on rare occasions did he use any club other than his Ping seven-iron for the tee shot on hole seventeen. He pulled the iron from his bag, teed up the shiny white golf ball, cleared his mind of anything other than making good contact, and let the club do its work. Swish. That sound was music to Ray’s ears. He knew when he had hit the ball on the screws, and this was one of those times.
Unfortunately for Ray, he had not fully allowed for a powerful wind gust that occurred in the middle of his backswing. He felt the force of the wind, but it was too late for him to abort his swing. Consequently, the ball in flight began to drift somewhat to the left side of the green. For a moment, it appeared the shot might not clear the water, but to Ray’s relief, the ball landed on the edge of the putting surface, halting no more than a foot from the green’s collar. The ball was resting, however, at least thirty feet from the pin. Advantage Richard.
Ray was an excellent putter, and he knew every dip and contour of the seventeenth green. Nonetheless, a thirty-foot putt was a test for any golfer, even for the pros. Ray marked his ball with a plastic disc, then paced the length of the green, checking for any leaf or debris that might interfere with the roll of the ball. Crouching, he lined up the putt, visualizing the path it would take to the cup. Satisfied with his reading of what was needed to make the putt, Ray repositioned the ball, removed the marker, stood, placed his putter behind the ball, and gave it his best stroke.
The pace of Ray’s putt could not have been better. The ball was on course to go into the cup or settle within a foot or two of the pin. As it approached its target, Ray held his breath, exhaling only when the ball lipped out on the left side of the cup. Almost in! He winced. Disappointed, he tapped the ball into the cup for his par.
Richard had a makeable putt. Confidently, he stroked the ball into the cup to score a birdie. The match was tied going into the final hole.
The eighteenth hole was an uphill, par-five that featured a dogleg left, leading to a green that brought players back to the clubhouse. Ray had lost two strokes to Richard on the last two holes. He was determined not to lose another. And he did not. Both men shot par on the eighteenth. Richard had finished the day with a round of 68 and a share of the lead. Ray had closed with a one-under-par 71.
Doffing their caps, Richard and Ray shook hands and made their way to the clubhouse where Pete congratulated both players for their excellent round on a windy day.
“Great scores, fellas,” Pete smiled. “You were the only two to shoot below par today. Congratulations! So, in five minutes, we will all go back to the seventeenth tee box to begin a playoff. From there on, it will be sudden death.”
Sudden Death at Bogey Bay is a simple mystery with small town vibes focusing on two central characters and the Alvarez family. Ray is a skilled golf player but inattentive husband, and Ben is a local sheriff painted as an empathetic and caring man. The Alvarez family is in hiding, seeking refuge in America from Colombia. We follow each of their journeys until these groups collide in a sudden death at this golf course in the Ozarks.
I love intriguing mysteries with suspense and nuanced characters that transport me to another place and time. Unfortunately, this novel left me unsatisfied. The story’s flat characters, their one-dimensional motives, and the lack of conflict in this basic narrative setup made it easy but dry to read.
The first half of the book is filled with lengthy descriptions of people and places. Ray is someone who loves golf and cares too much about his work, often leaving his wife Harriet at home. She seeks solace in another - almost too obviously, Ray’s golf rival. Ben is written as a man of morals - he’s a sheriff of the people, and we are emphatically reminded that this means all people, not just those who go to his church or look like him. He sees himself as an “angel of mercy” for the Alvarez family and holds onto his All-American values while admonishing those who don’t, like “the shameful televangelists” or the farmers who assume all immigrants are “illegals”. There’s a lot of telling and not enough showing, all with faint political undertones.
The second half picks up the pace with more interweaving characters and scenes. The author sets up this murder mystery with 3 potential leads and motives - one of love, one of community, and one of crime. Instead of leaving us guessing, the 3 leads are quickly reduced to 1 through a process of elimination. We follow Ben on an investigative journey where very little goes wrong, and once again, good easily triumphs over evil. Without deeper interpersonal conflict or unexpected difficulties, there’s little at stake for everyone involved. The feel-good ending failed to have its intended impact on me because there wasn't enough tension built up to begin with.
Readers who appreciate golf, prefer straightforward “whodunnit” stories, and enjoy happy endings may like this book, but fans of Agatha Christie’s detectives or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes would do better looking elsewhere.