Catwalk Murders: Jim Richards Murder Mysteries, #44

By Bob Moats

Jim is asked to help protect a fashion designer. So Jim and Buck gather men from his security team to watch the woman whose life is threatened. They have one attack on the woman but the suspect was chased away, then during a fashion show Penny is walking the runway when a gunshot is fired at her. They have to catch the shooter. and eventually the case is solved. This is a novella, shorter than a novel, but longer than a short story. This is a Jim Richards book number 45.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Moats
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201872526

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 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

Jim Richards crashed through the door with guns blazing. He was careful not to shoot the woman tied to the chair in the center of the room. He took down the five men standing, surprised by his heroics, they had no time to draw their guns to return fire. Jim went to the woman and untied her. She jumped up and hugged him saying, My hero, and kissed him passionately.

You expect to sell that dreg? came a voice from behind me while seated at my computer writing a new book. I jumped when Penny spoke after she was reading over my shoulder at the paragraph that I had just written.

Hey, I’m trying a fiction story now. My true life crime series has run its course since I retired from being a private investigator.

What are you talking about? You helped with the RV murders and the Casino attack. Those were true crime and you didn’t start a book about those cases.

I just couldn’t get into them to write about the subject. You were there for both those cases and maybe you should write them. You could ghost write for me and I can sell them under my name. They will sell well that way.

Hell, no. If I write them, I take credit. Or we could co-write them like James Patterson is doing with Maxine Paetro.

Okay, but my name is on top. You get the by-line.

I’ve been wondering when you were going to get senile. It’s starting. She turned and left my home office. I was not getting senile. I hoped.

I looked back at the dreg I had written and deleted the paragraph. I was having writer’s block on my books. I hoped it wasn’t senility or Alzheimer’s. I don’t think I would like not recognizing Penny. I stood and left my home office and went to the kitchen and looked in the fridge for something to eat.

Eating again? Penny said as she entered the kitchen. You just had dinner an hour ago. I guess you are getting senile to forget eating.

Will you stop with the senile talk? I’m not getting senile, I’m just still hungry. We ate Chinese food and they say an hour later you get hungry again.

That’s an old excuse for forgetting eating. It’s a sign of senility.

I give up. Okay, I’m senile, put me in a nursing home.

About time you admitted that.

Anything to get away from you. I said and left the kitchen. I stood on the porch watching Willy soiling the lawn. I knew I’d have to pick up after him, something I wasn’t fond of. While watching him my phone buzzed. I looked