Press
LONDON FREE PRESS
REVIEW: Grand tale just around the Bend
Joan Barfoot
Special to Sun Media
February 21, 2009
In this dead of winter, some outsiders may be holding warm thoughts of summertime frolics at Grand Bend.
DEATH AT THE BEND by Rick Hundey (FauxPop Media, $29)
But for those who actually live there, it’s a real year-round town with real year-round issues — and in the hands of Rick Hundey, real crime, as well.
Hundey is a bit of a find — a self-published Exeter resident with a talent for plotting, characterization and humour.
With an appealing protagonist in Grand Bend private investigator and coffee shop owner Jack Beer, he looks set for a series — in which case he should be hunting a mainstream publisher able to provide the expertise his fiction could use.
Meanwhile, his Death at the Bend is a complex, entertaining read that covers several bases, from property development corruptions to excessive religious fervency.
Even disputes between biker gangs get drawn into the mix as Beer is hired by a London lawyer friend to try to exonerate a Grand Bend woman suspected of attempting to poison her developer husband.
The woman, Jessie Ashton, turns out to be the former Jessie Coulter, a preacher’s daughter who as a teenager seduced and abandoned Jack Beer. He knows her as a stone-cold manipulator, but can’t picture her as a killer — even when her husband Preston does later turn up dead by gunshot.
Preston and his partner Danny have run into expensive servicing problems trying to develop a Grand Bend subdivision, amid rumours they’ve tried to bribe a local municipal planner. The catch is that Danny also has biker connections among Hells Angels busily solidifying their hold in the region.
Apparently any number of people could have had an interest in brooming Preston from the scene to make way for bigger money, fewer scruples, and harder knuckles.
Jack’s coffee shop partner and lover, Sheila, is considerably less convinced than he is that Jessie isn’t her husband’s killer — or at least the instigator of his murder. And Sheila is very smart, plenty strong-willed and knows Jessie has a first-love hold on Jack that she suspects is distorting his judgment.
Jack isn’t one of those annoying hard-boiled PIs who are sure of themselves and their toughness. He bumbles, he gets beaten, he ambles in wrong directions. He’s not professionally ambitious, either, but he does have the integrity, dignity and wit to propel him to a complicated but righteous conclusion.
Hundey, a former community planner and consultant, sells his novel online, which may put him on the leading edge of a new universe in which publishers recede in importance.
But at the moment, nobody’s figured out not only how to replicate the distribution and marketing powers of real publishers, but how to tap their editorial skills. Hundey, who has genuine gifts, could use some of both.
Joan Barfoot is a novelist living in London.
Seaforth Press
Date – Feb. 4, 2009
Re. reading at Seaforth Public Library, Jan. 26, ’09, 7 PM
Death at the Bend author shares wisecracking sense of humour with character in mystery novel
By Dan Schwab
Although Rick Hundey denies it, those who’ve read his new book and know him well claim the author has a few things in common with his wisecracking main character – Jack Beer.
Although Hundey is not a private eye solving murder mysteries like Beer, Hundey is told he shares the character’s ‘twisted sense of humour.”
The Exeter author read the first chapter of his book death at the Bend and signed copies at the Seaforth Library, Monday night (Jan. 9).
The story is set in Grand Bend, where Hundey says he spent a considerable amount of time during his teenage years. The main character, Jack Beer, a former small town police chief, owns a coffee shop with his girl friend on Grand Bend’s main street, working part time as a gumshoe. When a client’s husband is murdered, Beer is hired to find the killer. “There’s a structure to mysteries. It’s almost like a four or five act play,” Hundey told the small group attending the reading. “You need a murder, a motive, and a problem to be solved. The detective must go through failure, then rebirth, then find a solution.”
Published two months ago by Fauxpop Media, Death at the Bend took the first-time author about a year to write. Hundey intends to make it the first of a series of Jack Beer mystery novels. He’s currently working on the second installment, which takes place in Collingwood and involves the death of an Elvis impersonator.
“It’s darker,” Hundey says. Writing about three to four hours every day, Hundey says he’s constantly coming up with new story ideas. He told the group at the library that although it may seem strange, he has ‘arguments’ with his characters about plot twists. “Jack keeps going and I can’t seem to pull him back,” he says. “I wrote biographies of the main characters. Then as I went along, the characters would tell me what to do next…. These characters surprise me.” Hundey’s tendency to get lost in his work has him keeping a voice recorder handy for when inspiration strikes, whether he’s going for a walk or driving his car. He also says he’s lucky enough never to have gotten writer’s block. He draws on his experience as a former town administrator in Exeter and automotive assembly line worker and from people he’s known in real life to create some of the book’s characters. “I just exaggerate them,” he says. “That’s what makes it real.”
A biker and an ex-con that Hundey worked with while at the automotive plant in his native Windsor ended up becoming the basis for Jack Beer’s sidekick. But it’s the sections of the book where he added ‘local flavour’ that Hundey says have generated the most interest among readers. “There’s a different culture in rural areas,” he says. “I’ve lived here almost 20 years and I feel I understand it.” Some of the darker and steamier sections of the book had Hundey’s church minister raising an eyebrow. “He asked me if I’m as twisted as my character,” he said. “I was concerned they might fire me as a Sunday school teacher.”
So far, 380 copies of the book have been sold and Hundey says plans for another printing are in the works.
Huron Expositer- February 2009
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Wingham Advanced Times – February 2009
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PRESS RELEASE – FauxPop Media
Huron County writer Rick Hundey’s debut novel will introduce readers to part-time private eye, full-time coffee shop owner Jack Beer, whose wry sense of humour and sarcastic tone belie this ex-cop’s cleverness and determination to close every case at any cost.
Hundey brings a taste of the hard boiled to small town life, pulling dirty municipal politics, bikers, brawlers and dangerous women into an engaging mystery that pushes Jack Beer to confront the long-buried secrets of his own troubled past.
2008 Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist Paul Ciufo says “Death at the Bend is an engrossing page-turner with unforgettable characters. Hundey’s witty and intelligent writing is a delight — I can’t wait for his next book.”
After a thirty year career in community planning, municipal management and consulting, Rick Hundey has taken to writing on a full-time basis. A past winner of the Alice Munro Writers’ Festival Short Story contest, Hundey is already deep into in his second novel, another Jack Beer mystery.
Death at the Bend can be bought directly from the author through the web at www.rickhundey.fauxpop.tv.
FauxPop Media is a grassroots media production company taking advantage of current technology and the Web for independent artists and creators.
