Song of the Spider Woman: Ed Taylor Mystery Novella, #4

By Bob Moats

Ed Taylor is an insurance investigator who moved from the big city near Detroit to live back to his hometown in northern Michigan. There he meets the woman he knew from high school and they ended up close.They finally bought a house they now live in. Ed is given a fraud cash to prove the man was faking his injury. After that he goes after a singer in a small band who is suspected of murder. He eventually stops her from killing again and then his life is in danger. This book is a novella, shorter than a novel but longer than a short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Moats
• Release date: Apr 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223886457

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 , 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

Ihadn’t heard from the insurance company that I was now working for in the

Traverse City branch. I wasn’t worried about the lack of work, I had a bit of cash saved up in my bank account. It was from the insurance money I was given by my mother from my Uncle’s death. I also received a check from the local police for my work on the Spillato case. It wasn’t much but based on a 40-hour work week, it came to $10 an hour.

The lack of extra funds put a crimp in our travel plans. We felt it was better to stay around the house we now owned and work on fixing it up. Alex’s son Larry was working hard to finish painting the rooms, now that the outer portions of the house were done.

Alex was busy in her room most days typing on her new laptop, adding chapters to the book that she had started. When she was busy writing, I left her alone.

I was starting to feel the effects of cabin fever since I had no hobbies or interests other than investigating crime and fraud for my insurance company. I found out that there were two other investigators working for the company in this area, so I was low man on the totem pole for jobs. I needed to get my P.I. business going which meant advertising. There was a county newspaper that came out once a week and their rates weren’t bad for a display ad. I sat down and sketched out the ad I thought would gather the most response from readers. I knew I would be taking on spousal cheats and