Author: Robert Fate

ISBN: 13: 978-0-9776276-2-2

The “wise guys” that populate Robert Fate's second novel, Baby Shark's BEAUMONT BLUES, are not exactly the kind you would want to bring home to mother’s family dinner, as the P.I. team of Kristin Van Dijk and Otis Millett soon discover.

Kristin and Otis were first introduced to us in Fate's debut novel Baby Shark when their client, Henry Chin, hired them to help find the men who killed Chin's son and Kristin's father. Since then Kristin has gone onto to become a Licensed P.I. and is now a full fledged partner with Otis in the firm of Millett Agency in Fort Worth Texas.

Fate’s newest yarn opens when Kristin and Otis involve themselves in tracking down a young seventeen-year old heiress, Sherry Beasley, who apparently was either kidnapped by some unsavory characters or had run away. This was not the first time that Sherry went missing or that the Millett Agency had been engaged to track her down. In fact, Otis was curious as to why Sherry, who was young and wealthy, would find it appealing to run away and get into trouble with people who were far below her station. However, as Otis relates, Sherry did confess to him one day that with private teachers and not being allowed to live her life as a normal teenager, she felt like a potted geranium. No one in the family paid attention to her, and she didn't have any friends.

Sherry was a co- heir to her father Hiram Beasley's huge estate. She was his youngest child and his favorite from his four wives. Sherry on her eighteenth birthday, together with her other co-heirs, were going to inherit a great deal of money.

However, what was even more important was that Hiram's will stated that if Sherry should die, become mentally incapacitated or disappear before reaching the age of eighteen, the entire estate would be left to Joshua Scurver, a radio evangelist. Scurver was also a co-heir to a considerable share in the Hiram estate.

You can well-understand why Sherry’s co-heirs wanted to make sure that she shows up safe and sound on her eighteenth birthday when the will is to be read. Whenever Sherry was on the loose, Hagan Buchanan, an attorney and executor of her father's estate would contact Kristin and Otis to track her down. Kristin and Otis began to question why Hiram's law firm had always hired them and as Otis states, “just because a big law firm hires us to do something don't always mean what they're asking us to do is the right thing. Or even a legal thing to do, for that matter.”

As Kristin and Otis become involved in Sherry's latest missing episode, the duo find themselves witnessing the murder of two gangsters, stealing one hundred thousand dollars without meaning to, and becoming involved in some nastiness with three other dudes-two of whom wind up dead. Also thrown in was the trading of blackmail photography for information as to where Sherry was holed up. If this wasn't enough, Kristin had also advised one witness to lie to the police and another to leave town to avoid arrest. And on top of all this, Kristin was complicit in sequestering a minor from her legal guardian and family.   

Once again Fate has managed to give us a compelling read, spiced up with enough lively banter between Kristin and Otis that snaps back and forth quicker than a ping-pong ball. He has a wonderful facility for the grotesque as evidenced from some of his gory bloody scenes that may not be for everyone. However, justice does prevail as the bad guys are taken out.

Moreover, everything Fate writes holds your interest to the very end with a style that is unequivocally readable. If you have no interruptions, you can easily consume Baby Shark's BEAUMONT BLUES in a single night, although you may have some difficulty falling asleep after you put the book down. And yes, the surprise ending will throw you for a loop!

The above review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Retired Title Attorney: Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

To read Norm's Interview With Robert Fate CLICK HERE