A Swamp Yankee Mystery Series

The smallest town in the smallest state has some BIG problems! ​ Gus Haddock has just been appointed chief of police in the town of Little Penwick, RI, replacing his father, who is now in jail.  The state's Attorney General, who sent the elder Haddock away, has appointed a new Special Master to keep tabs on Gus' department.  And Chief Haddock's three tours with the U.S. Army Rangers in the Middle East has left him with a touch of PTSD. ​ But Gus starts investigating the unusual circumstances regarding the disappearance of the patriarch of the town's bad-seed local crime family—the case that inspired the Attorney General to send his Dad away.  And then SHE walks in. ​ The Glitter Girl.  Young, drop-dead gorgeous and apparently deeply involved in the case. Who is she? Why is she living in Little Penwick?  How does she fit into the web of intrigue that links the town, the AG, the Providence Mob and everything else? ​ Gus Haddock has his hands full. But he's a Swamp Yankee … the salt-of-the-earth natives who have been carving a living out of the rocky land and dangerous seas in this part of New England for four hundred years … and if anybody can figure out what's going on, he can.  

Julius Haddock is mad as hell and he's gonna do something about it! In Glitter Girl, Book One of the Swamp Yankee mysteries, Julius Haddock, the former chief of police of Little Penwick, Rhode Island, was in jail, thanks to a corrupt District Attorney and a few bent judges. Now, after some good police work by his son Gus Haddock, the new chief of police, he's out. And free.   Julius wants revenge, but he's going to get it on his own schedule. In the meantime, armed with his new private investigator's license, Julius decides to take another look at one of Little Penwick's coldest cases: the thirty-year-old murder of Donna Dixon, a seventeen year old who was abducted and killed while riding her bike to work at her summer job.   But as he starts to look into what happened to Donna thirty years ago, Julius Haddock finds that everyone seems to have some secrets from that long-ago time. And he even finds a few secrets in Little Penwick that are fresh and brand new.   But nobody doubts that Julius Haddock can figure out what happened. He's a Swamp Yankee, after all. Proud, determined and relentless.

All seems peaceful in Little Penwick, the smallest town in the smallest state. Then, Police Chief Gus Haddock is run off the road, someone shoots at the police station and the realization sets in … … She's baaa-ack! Janine Stone, the Glitter Girl in Book One of James Y. Bartlett's Swamp Yankee Mysteries, has returned to town and she's looking for the pot of gold she was owed from the human smuggling ring she ran for the criminal element up in Providence.   So Chief Haddock and the Little Penwick department start searching around town … for Janine … for the stash of money … for the local idiots Janine paid to shoot up the station.   At the same time, Gus Haddock's personal life is set aflame when his girlfriend, the Providence lawyer-turned-abused-women's-advocate Maggie Wells announces she's pregnant.   It's all in a day's work for a Swamp Yankee like Gus Haddock in this exciting new small town police drama.

From Suspect to Sleuth! When Rhode Island Attorney General Preston Knox is brutally murdered in his home, just weeks before getting elected Governor, the state police immediately pull in Julius Haddock for questioning. After all, Julius, the now-retired chief of police in the town of Little Penwick, had a beef with the AG, when Knox drummed up some fake charges and put him in jail. (Glitter Girl, Book 1). But Julius didn't do it, and has an unshakeable alibi—he was out having breakfast with his son Gus Haddock, the current chief in Little Penwick. So the outgoing governor appoints Julius to the task force investigating Preston Knox's murder because she was impressed with his recent work on a cold case (Cold Secrets, Book 2). And that's how Julius Haddock went from suspect to sleuth, working with the state police to track down leads and eliminate suspects, one by one. Along the way, Julius is befriended by a local kid on a bike, who has some family secrets of his own; and with his partner Siggi, Julius has to try and convince the last surviving member of an old Little Penwick family to consider donating his land to the Little Penwick Land Trust. But there are old family ghosts in the way there, too. Family Affairs, Book 4 in the Swamp Yankee Mystery series, is another page-turning adventure of police procedural, small-town relationships and family secrets. Just the kind of stew that makes James Y. Bartlett's inventive new series so popular with readers.

It's 1924 and Rhode Island is Dry. And hating it. Prohibition was never popular in the state that refused to ratify the 18th Amendment banning the sale and use of alcoholic beverages. As the Ocean State, lots of Rhode Islanders found work as rum runners. Especially shuttles out to 'Rum Row,' a flotilla of boats loaded with booze sitting at anchor in international waters, just outside the three-mile boundary limit.   John Edward Haddock is a merchant mariner in the town of Little Penwick who is offered a cool grand to take the Black Duck, the fastest motor vessel in Narragansett Bay, out to Rum Row just before New Year's Eve. The Duck, upgraded with surplus WWI aircraft engines, is even faster than the Coast Guard cutters patrolling the coastline.   John Edward knows it's wrong, and he's loathe to get involved with the criminal element, like Boston's notorious Charles 'King' Solomon … but he could use the money. To start building the house of his dreams, and to propose to the girl of his dreams: Vollie Jeffords.   Rum Row is the novella that tells the story of that dramatic nighttime voyage. And it's a prequel to the Swamp Yankee Mystery series by award-winning author James Y. Bartlett.