Böcker av Glenn Ickler

What could possibly go wrong on a June cruise in Portugal aboard the Pleasure Boat of Love on the River of Gold? Just about everything if you are St. Paul newspaper reporter Warren "Mitch" Mitchell and photographer Alan "Al" Jeffrey, and you're cruising aboard the FelicityAmour on the Douro River. Mitch's mother has won a free cruise for two with Felicity Cruises, Ltd., and the two-person party of Mom and Mitch has expanded to six, with the addition of Mitch's wife; Mitch's best buddy and working companion, Al, and his wife; and Mitch's mother's comfort creature, a curiosity-motivated cat named Sherlock Holmes. Also aboard the ship are a famous European TV personality, Lady T, and her Tuscany vacation home neighbors, Harold and Estelle Koerner. The cruise becomes less pleasurable when Estelle announces that the huge emerald that she wore on the first night aboard has been stolen and Harold accuses Lady T of the crime. The FelicityAmour is confined in port while the theft is investigated, and the situation goes from critical to calamity when a small-time jeweler, who is enthralled by a gigantic diamond worn by Lady T, is found dead of arsenic consumption the morning after dining with the famous Lady. Again, Harold points to Lady T as the perpetrator. With the ship stranded at dockside by a plodding police investigator, the itinerary for Mitch and Al shifts to seeking the whereabouts of the emerald and the identity of the killer. After questioning both Lady T and Harold, Mitch finds himself about to disappear, as if by magic, in the dark of night on the River of Gold.

Led by their wives in a search for fun and friendships, newspaper reporter Mitch Mitchell and photographer Alan Jeffrey promenade into the world of square dance lessons. The two couples' newfound fun takes a shocking downturn when Andy Wetherbee, a nationally-famous visiting caller, is murdered while taking a cigarette break at the intermission of their first club dance. As they join police in a search for the killer's identity, Mitch and Al uncover long-time jealousies and private passions among the members of the Grand Squares Club. Mitch is distracted when his mother accidentally shoots a late-night prowler on her farm, but a pistol pointed at his head brings him back into focus on the Wetherbee murder. Soon he and Al are caught up in the flight of three fugitives: Wetherbee's killer, the killer's accomplice and an unseen rifleman who blows out his mother's bedroom window in the middle of the night.

When an autopsy reveals arsenic in the dead man's stomach, "a few days" visit on Martha's Vineyard to settle the affairs of his recently departed octogenarian Uncle Walt becomes a longer, more adventurous stay for Minnesota cartoonist Dave Jerome and his buddies, St. Paul Daily Dispatch reporter Warren "Mitch" Mitchell and photographer Alan Jeffrey. Because Uncle Walt was a former editor of the Daily Dispatch, Mitch and Al are ordered to stay on the Vineyard and report on the murder investigation. Dave stays with them in the "one for all and all for one" spirit of Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers. But when another senior citizen, who claims to be either Teddy Roosevelt or Teddy Kennedy, turns up dead of arsenic poisoning, the puzzled investigators begin to identify more with the Three Stooges than the Three Musketeers. Toss in a naked lawyer on a clothing-optional beach and a dazzling duo of identical twin sisters holding Uncle Walt's financial investments, and the troubled trio is faced with many questions that seem to have no answers.