A Personal War

By Bob Moats

Sam Hunt was a decorated Viet Nam Army sniper. He now lived in the quiet suburbia outside of Detroit and yet he enters a battle for justice after his neighbor was murder in what looked like a hit. Seems a local mob wanted to get a lucrative contract to pave the county roads with shoddy concrete and after Sam and a police detective start investigating, war breaks out for Sam as he tries to battle the mob and his own inner demons caused by PTSD and alcohol. The mob messed with the wrong veteran. This book is a novella, longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Moats
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393575412

Bob Moats

Detroit area resident, Bob Moats, has been writing short stories and plays for as long as he can remember. He has lost most of his original stories, typed or handwritten, in the numerous moves he has made from his hometown of Fraser, Michigan to Northern Michigan, to Las Vegas and back to Fraser, where he now lives. Moats became one of the causalities of unemployment a year ago, and had time on his hands to finally pursue a life long dream of writing a full blown crime novel. Thus was born the first book, "Classmate Murders".What followed was a series of seven books starting with "The Classmate Murders" which introduces the main character, Jim Richards, who has to admit he has become a senior citizen, reluctantly. Richards, one day, receives an email from a childhood sweetheart asking for his help, but by the time he reaches her, she has been murdered. His life turns around and he is pulled into numerous murders of women from his high school who he hasn't seen in forty years. Along with a friend of his, Buck, a big, mustached biker, they go off to track down the killer before he can get to one former classmate, Penny Wickens, a TV talk show host who Jim has just fallen for while protecting her. The killer is also murdering the women right out from under police protection, driving homicide detective Will Trapper crazy, and he slowly depends on Jim to help. There's humor, suspense, wild chases across suburban Detroit with cops, classic cars and motorcycle clubs; murder, mayhem, a good amount of romance and a twist ending.Jim and his crime fighters, continue in the other books, traveling to Las Vegas twice, back to Detroit and out to New York to solve murders involving dominatrix; mistresses; Bridezillas; magic and strip clubs.Book titles: Classmate Murders; Vegas Showgirl Murders; Dominatrix Murders; Mistress Murders; Bridezilla Murders; Magic Murders; Strip Club Murders and Made-for-TV Murders.

Book preview

Extra special thanks to:

TO AMY MORNINGSTAR for doing edits. To the Beta readers, Cindy Valstad, Carolyn Linington, and Al Norris for reading the final copy and hopefully catching all those annoying little errors that slip through.

Thank you to all the people who purchased this story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for my faithful readers.

Chapter 1

THE BATHROOM SIZED paper cup was half-filled with Topaz Tequila as Sam Hunt lifted the cup to his lips anticipating the horrible tasting liquid entering his mouth. A couple months ago he had read online that the Agave plant used to make tequila had beneficial properties for a person’s health. Sam was willing to try anything natural to help his body function better since he didn’t trust drug companies with their healing elixirs and pills. He would buy a large bottle of Topaz Gold Tequila at the local market because it was the cheapest he could afford. Being on VA disability pay he had to watch his funds. Bad enough he was buying a case of Natural Light beer every week and limiting himself to only drinking four cans a night before bed. In his younger days he could consume six or more cans every night, but he was feeling the effects of the alcohol on his body. Which is why he thought the tequila would help.

After three months of drinking the medicinal tequila shots every four hours during the day and whenever the mood hit him late nights when he woke to take a bathroom break due to the beer he consumed in the evening, he hadn’t seen much improvement in his body. By now it was an addiction that kept him consuming the foul liquid. He might have made it go down better with a little salt and a lime chaser.

He also forced the liquid down just to help numb his miserable life. He didn’t drink enough to end up in a drunken stupor, like he did in his younger days, but the amounts that he maintained were just enough to make him feel better about himself. He lived alone in his family home that was left to him when his mother passed away a few years back. His father had passed eight years ago in the bedroom that Sam now occupied. The house was paid off, so he had no payments, but the utilities and taxes chewed up most of his disability pay.

Sam was a loner and held most people in low regard. He had suffered through two bad divorces and a few bad relationships with women who took him for what they could. Since then, he soured on getting involved with any woman, so he was happy as a hermit. His only pleasure was his connection to people on Facebook. He made up a profile that he could live with and not worry about people getting too involved in his life. He had a few friends who liked the persona he maintained, and they got along well enough.

He didn’t use his real name on the social network, just his middle name, Pete. He also avoided letting people know where he lived. Not that he figured they would come knocking on his door, but it was better not to announce that he lived in Roseville, Michigan, which he did. As much as he didn’t want people involved in his real life, he needed some companionship, even if it was online where people could be faceless. He had put up a photo of himself when he was in his early thirties, much different than the 52-year-old he was now. He never mentioned his actual age, so he wouldn’t attract a bunch of old farts as he called them.

1:30 am, Sunday morning, he took a last sip from the beer can as he sat at his computer watching the timeline for the people who he followed. This early morning, he found that no one he knew was online, so he just read what was being posted. Tonight, he stayed up later than he usually did, so he waited for a couple of his friends to maybe show