It's the best theme park on the East Coast. But lately we're not just hearing screams from the roller coasters. There's also been a murder down in the basement.
   What's going on?
   Some say the mob is running the park, just like they used to run Las Vegas.
   Can anyone stop them?
   Enter private eye Darby Weston. With help from two Icelandic sisters who are working for the big boss.
   They're willing to risk their lives to bring the killers to justice.

___________

   Meet Carissa and Ylva. The two sisters are different as night and day. Not just their outer appearances-a blonde and brunette-but Carissa is posh and philosophical. And Ylva is an irrepressible nut; at least according to her older sister. Oh, and they're also wannabe detectives, working as housekeepers.


   Private detective Darby Weston runs into the sisters when covering a murder at the theme park. And can't help falling in love with Carissa, the posh one, not knowing if she's really working for "Crime Inc." or not.
   
___________

   A security guard, during the midnight hour, was checking the cavernous subbasements under the theme park. He had just stepped out of the elevator when he spotted a short gruff man with a 2-day growth of whiskers. A man dressed in an elf costume. One of those cosplay crazies, the guard assumed.
   "What are you doing down here?" the guard demanded.
   He was met with a hail of bullets.
   When the sun came up and the park opened, the park's customers stumbled over the guard's body. Somebody had moved it upstairs.
   The park called a news conference, and said it was an accident. The guard had simply "tripped and fallen." Move along, nothing to see here, they seemed to be saying.
   Private eye Darby Weston, posing as a reporter, broke into a fit of laughter. And he couldn't stop laughing until he started choking and coughing. "Sorry. I just need a glass of water," he said as he excused himself and left the room.
   The press corps stared at him as he went out the door. They wondered if he was drunk? Or high? Actually, he was already on the trail of the killers.


___________

Darby does not believe in supernatural beasts. And he certainly doesn't believe in elf assassins. But that guy down in the basement who looked like an elf? What was he covering up? Murder? A portal into another world? Top secret military weapons? Or what?

___________


A SAMPLE FROM THE BOOK: The Tunnel of Love ride, after the amusement park had closed for the night:
[(c) 2022; Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.]


   All Carissa could hear was a spooky silence. It was so quiet, she could practically hear her heart beating. Thump, thump, thump...
   "Let's get out of here," she whispered to Darby, not sure if she was just getting paranoid.
   Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow move and she looked up just in time to see a white creature leap out from behind a bush. A ghostly apparition, as pale as an albino mountain gorilla. Like some kind of abominable snowman, human shaped with a thick coat of polar bear colored hair covering it from foot to head, hellish, angry, and running towards them...

(c) 2022 G. Kerr