JAMES P. HOLMES

In the quiet town of Wellfleet, located on Cape Cod, the wood ticks outnumber the year-round residents. The locals fish for a living, while the omnipresent seagulls circle overhead, waiting their chance for a free meal as the day’s catch is cleaned and made ready for sale. Sunshine and miles of sandy beaches make for a beautiful and serene way of life. 

Unless, of course, you’re dead. More specifically, murdered.

A violent crime in Wellfleet is a rarity. Until now. First, Walter Harrington, the friendly mailman, is found dead, and then, Abigail Snow, sister of John Snow, Wellfleet’s Chief of Police, dies mysteriously. The State Police take over both investigations and quickly announce the cause of death, in both cases, to be “natural causes.”

No one believes it, but why the cover-up?

Walter Harrington’s son, Jack, an officer in Military Intelligence, returns home from Afghanistan and starts to ask questions about his father’s untimely death.

Unknowingly, Jack kicks a hornet’s nest of lies and deceit that puts him front and center in not only solving his father and Abigail’s deaths, but also on the front line of fighting today’s opioid crisis.

 Previously, in Volume One of The Mailbox Mysteries: In My Father’s Footsteps:

Jack Harrington finds himself unexpectedly back home, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, after his last tour of duty in Afghanistan. The reason for the trip home was his father’s sudden death. What ended his career in Military Intelligence were the severe injuries he received from an RPG that hit the C-130 he was in. Innocently returning home for his father’s funeral, Jack left one war zone behind and unknowingly stumbled into a new one, one that threatened the existence of not only his home town, but all of Cape Cod.

Beautiful beaches and gentle waves lapping at the shoreline are some of the defining features that attract so many people from around the world to visit and enjoy Cape Cod. Or is it? In Volume Two of The Mailbox Mysteries: Searching for Icebergs, Jack finds himself sought after for his skills learned in Military Intelligence. Knowing there is always more to a story than meets the eye, Jack digs deep into the who, what, and why’s of the people around him. In so doing, he discovers an ugly reality that has tentacles reaching around the world. Once again, Jack finds himself center stage in combating a problem that reaches far beyond the shores of Cape Cod. This time, however, the love of his life, Wendy, is involved in a way that Jack never could have imagined!

 I didn’t sleep a wink, tossing and turning all night as I wrestled with how to deliver presents that would be opened without fear of being infected with COVID-19. 

I hardly touched my breakfast of pancakes with candy-cane syrup, my favorite. Even the hot chocolate tasted bitter. That was an impossibility, but so was not delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Getting up from the table, I wondered if this was something I would have to get used to. My heart sank at the possibility, and the smile disappeared from my face.

The joy and relief that Santa and his toy-makers and elves experienced after completing Christmas 2020 are short lived, as new and more difficult challenges rear their ugly heads in 2021. The world’s population is tired of COVID; but, even worse than getting sick, people of all ages are losing their hope for a better day tomorrow. Nothing is worse than losing hope—without it, we are all lost. Santa, knowing this to be true, feels a responsibility to help us all believe in each other again—and believe that family, love, and better days are ahead for all of us. But how? Santa is relevant only in one month, December—even then, for only one day. The twenty-fifth, to be exact. Santa calls his friend Old Man Crabtree, who had played a big part in the success of Christmas 2020. Both recognize the problem but are at a loss for how to solve it. Far from the North Pole, a commercial fishing boat returning to Cape Cod the week before Christmas gets caught in a surprise and deadly Nor’easter and sinks. There are no survivors. Fishermen lost at sea and restoring the true spirit of Christmas to a pandemic-weary world: What could one event have to do with the other? As improbable as it may seem, the relationship is perfect—and it has been years in the making. Not all miracles happen overnight.

In The Mailbox Mysteries, Volume Three: Spare Parts

Jack Harrington has had enough of solving crimes and just wants the simplicity of delivering mail, to the same customers, day after day.

If, as the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together, then Jack should make new friends. Like it or not, with his background in military intelligence, Jack is an important spoke in the wheel of an unconventional crime-fighting unit.

Cape Cod, with its proximity to both Boston and New York City, continues to draw the worst of the worst to this sandy and sun-drenched peninsula.

This time, however, it’s more than drugs. Human trafficking has long, ugly fingers that reach around the world, all the way into the sleepy fishing village of Chatham, on the Cape. Oddly, human trafficking for slave labor or the sex trades, while evil crimes, pale in comparison to the despicable atrocities being forced upon the most vulnerable of the trafficked.

Jack and his partners find themselves, once again, dealing with an international problem that has reared its ugly head right in their back yard.

Jack and his friends attack this evil the only way they can—locally.

One day, one life at a time.