Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Sun, Sand, and Murder
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.johnkeyse-walker.com/
CITY:
STATE: OH
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Lives in Ohio and Florida * http://www.johnkeyse-walker.com/?page_id=34 * http://midwestgothic.com/2017/01/interview-john-keyse-walker/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016027814
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016027814
HEADING: Keyse-Walker, John
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100 1_ |a Keyse-Walker, John
400 1_ |a Walker, John Keyse-
670 __ |a Sun, sand, murder, 2016: |b ECIP t.p. (John Keyse-Walker)
PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name Irene.
EDUCATION:Graduated from College of Wooster; obtained law degree from Duke University School of Law.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. Attorney in private practice, Elyria, OH, c. 1982-2012.
AVOCATIONS:Travel, fishing, tennis, kayaking, and volunteer work.
AWARDS:Winner of St. Martin’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition, 2015.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
John Keyse-Walker is a retired attorney who was in private practice in Elyria, Ohio, for thirty years. When he retired in 2012, he thought he would do what other retirees did: travel, volunteer, fish, play tennis, and other things. What he found, however, was that these endeavors did not fill up his day, so he turned to writing. His first novel, Sun, Sand, Murder, won the St. Martin’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition in 2015. The book is set in the Virgin Islands. When a murder victim is found (a rarity in the Virgin Islands), special constable Teddy Creque investigates why someone would want Boston biologist Paul Kelliher dead. But the further he looks, the more questions arise, such as what he was really doing on the island and why he was carrying a code book.
Criminal Element Web site reviewer Jenny Maloney was impressed with Sun, Sand, Murder, and particularly loved the author’s descriptions: “Like his island home. Having grown up on Anegada (population: 200), Creque knows the topography. Anegada becomes a character in and of itself, filled with strange features like a hostile desert inland, luxurious houses, diving holes, and beautiful beaches—all with flavorful names like Cow Wreck Bay, the Settlement, Bone Bight, and Horseshoe Reef. Keyse-Walker does a lovely job creating a sense of place.” Maloney also praised the many interesting and diverse characters used by Keyse-Walker: “All of these multileveled characters—and more—come together in a mishmash of mystery and mixed-up motives, which makes Sun, Sand, Murder a fun read to finish out the summer. It’s intriguing to watch Creque navigate the ins-and-outs of the island, especially since procedures and training are so different … [from] those found in traditional crime novels. The investigation can go in any direction, which gives … John Keyse-Walker’s debut novel plenty of room to offer the reader a twist-turny ride.”
A reviewer on the Aunt Agatha’s Web log also heaped praise on Keyse-Walker and Sun, Sand, Murder: “Keyse-Walker is a natural storyteller. While some of the tropes are familiar—the small town cop (the “town” just happens to be one of the Virgin Islands, so his beat includes the beach), the sidekick, the mistress, and the chaotic and expected family life—Keyse-Walker adds his own sparkle to the proceedings, making reading this novel very enjoyable.” The reviewer found the solution to the crime “unexpected,” and added: “I found myself smiling along with Teddy as he attempted to crack his first case. I hope there will be more.” Michele Leber in Booklist called the book “A strong debut that vividly evokes its Caribbean locale.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August 1, 2016, Michele Leber, review of Sun, Sand, Murder, p. 38.
Publishers Weekly, July 4, 2016, review of Sun, Sand, Murder, p. 43.
ONLINE
Aunt Agatha’s, http://auntagathas.com/ (September 26, 2016), review of Sun, Sand, Murder.
Criminal Element, http://www.criminalelement.com/ (September 9, 2016), Jenny Maloney, review of Sun, Sand, Murder.*
John Keyse-Walker—Author, http://www.johnkeyse-walker.com (May 1, 2017), author home page.
John Keyse-Walker grew up in Columbia Station, Ohio, the son of a vegetable greenhouse operator and a stay-at-home mother. Much of his youth was spent exploring the fields, woods, and rivers near his rural home, or fishing and swimming in Florida, where his family had a modest second home. While he enjoyed reading, books took a backseat to outdoor pursuits.
He attended the College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, majoring in political science. He went on to obtain a law degree from Duke University School of Law (Go Blue Devils!), where he met a fellow student and Southern belle, Irene Walker, who became his wife.
After law school, he took the Ohio bar and began a practice in Elyria, Ohio. For the next thirty years, he had a diverse practice consisting mostly of trial work, and for many years served as his firm’s managing partner.
In 2012, he retired, planning to devote time to travel, fishing, tennis, kayaking, and volunteer work. When he found those pursuits failed to fill the hours in the day, he began to write. After two years of on-and-off efforts, he completed his debut novel, SUN, SAND, MURDER, which won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award.
John and his wife divide their time between homes in northern Ohio and Florida. He is currently working on his next crime novel.
INTERVIEW: JOHN KEYSE-WALKER
John Keyse-WalkerMidwestern Gothic staffer Megan Valley talked with author John Keyse-Walker about his novel SUN, SAND, MURDER, writing a book he wanted to read, writing as a second career, and more.
**
Megan Valley: What’s your connection to the Midwest?
John Keyse-Walker: I grew up in rural Ohio, in a township just west of Cleveland. Except for a stint at Duke Law School in Durham North Carolina, I have made my principal home in the same county where I was born, Lorain County. I practiced law for thirty years in Lorain County and even after retirement, spend the majority of the year there.
MV: You have lived in Florida as well. How has each region influenced your writing?
JKW: My mysteries are set in the British Virgin Islands, which I think have a very small-town Midwest vibe. In the BVI, everyone knows everyone, people are friendly, and it’s hard to have secrets – all of which reminds me of Ohio, just with better weather and a more exotic setting. So I can say that the BVI I write about could, with a few changes to the stories, as easily be about Ohio or someplace else in the Midwest. As for Florida, it has instilled in me a love of the sea, the beach, and fishing, all of which figure significantly in my writing.
MV: For thirty years you were a lawyer. Did always know writing was something you wanted to do?
JKW: Writing was something I did, daily, as a lawyer but it was very different from the writing I do as a mystery writer. Did I always want to write fiction? I am an avid reader and I think every reader has at least passing thoughts of writing someday but it certainly was not a passion or a lifelong ambition for me.
MV: Why did you set SUN, SAND, MURDER in the British Virgin Islands?
JKW: Toni Morrison said “If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I had visited the BVI a number of times and grew to love the island of Anegada there. I wanted to read a crime novel set there, so I had to write it. It is the perfect place for a mystery – lots of quirky characters, a lush tropical setting that is almost a character in and of itself, and such a low crime rate that a murder there is truly a shock.
SUN, SAND, MURDER
MV: Would you say you approach writing as a hobby?
JKW: I think it fits into the category of being a really fun second career for me now. What better career than one with flexible hours, an opportunity to research interesting topics, a modest amount of notoriety, and the ability to do the work sitting on my back deck overlooking Lake Erie or on the beach on Pine Island, in Florida?
MV: What was the inspiration for Anthony Wedderburn, “De White Rasta?”
JKW: There was a fellow I saw a few times on Anegada who inspired the look that Anthony has. He was a white guy, sported blond dreadlocks, and just drifted around the island. I never spoke to him, so the whole backstory of Anthony is pure invention. Indeed, Anthony was not intended to be a significant character when I started writing. He was simply going to find a body on the beach. But when I started writing his part, I liked him, so he took on a more prominent role in the book.
MV: After a career as a lawyer, your first novel is – fittingly – a crime novel. Do you stick to this genre?
JKW: It’s interesting that you would think it’s fitting for a lawyer to write crime fiction. Actually, my legal career was all civil cases, so criminal law almost never entered into my practice. But, to answer the question, I have no intention of writing outside the crime/mystery genre. It’s what I love to read, so it’s what I love to write. I think the genre is one of the most effective at providing the reader with pure entertainment and that, to me, should be the first objective of a writer.
MV: What’s the best piece of advice about writing you’ve ever received?
JKW: Write what you love. You are with the story, setting and characters in a novel for a long time, many hours spread over months and years. If you are not writing about something you passionately love, the topic or setting or characters will become tedious. None of us do good work if the work is tedious.
MV: What’s next?
JKW: I have completed the second book in the Special Constable Teddy Creque series, and it is currently with my agent. I have ideas for at least four books in the series, so I hope to complete at least that many. And I am currently working on a stand-alone murder mystery set on a German ocean liner on a round-Africa cruise in the days before the outbreak of WWII. The stand-alone is a project I really love because it is based on a cruise around Africa that my grandparents took aboard the North German Lloyd Line’s SS Columbus in 1939. Imagine visiting ports like Casablanca, Dakar, Cape Town, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Port Said, Villefranche, and Gibraltar in the pre-war era. Then couple that with a group of international passengers in an era of significant tension in the world, and isolationist sentiment in the U.S. I am having a great deal of fun writing it, and hopefully readers will have as much fun reading it.
**
John Keyse-Walker grew up in Columbia Station, Ohio, the son of a vegetable greenhouse operator and a stay-at-home mother. Much of his youth was spent exploring the fields, woods, and rivers near his rural home, or fishing and swimming in Florida, where his family had a modest second home. While he enjoyed reading, books took a backseat to outdoor pursuits. He attended the College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, majoring in political science. He went on to obtain a law degree from Duke University School of Law (Go Blue Devils!), where he met a fellow student and Southern belle, Irene Walker, who became his wife. After law school, he took the Ohio bar and began a practice in Elyria, Ohio. For the next thirty years, he had a diverse practice consisting mostly of trial work, and for many years served as his firm’s managing partner. In 2012, he retired, planning to devote time to travel, fishing, tennis, kayaking, and volunteer work. When he found those pursuits failed to fill the hours in the day, he began to write. After two years of on-and-off efforts, he completed his debut novel, SUN, SAND, MURDER, which won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award.
How They Came to Us
John won his first publishing contract through the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award and was unagented for his debut. Being a retired lawyer, he understood the importance of having an industry professional look over his contracts before he signed them so, when the time came to broach his second novel, he asked his editor to refer him to some agents. Happily, Danielle was one of the agents on the list. She read SUN, SAND, MURDER and felt like she had been whisked away to a tropical island vacation (albeit, a vacation with a pretty gruesome crime to solve!). She so enjoyed John’s writing that she offered him representation right away. They’ve now sold his second book, BEACH, BREEZE, BLOODSHED.
Bio
John practiced as a trial lawyer for thirty-two years. In 2012, he retired, planning to devote time to travel, fishing, tennis, kayaking, and volunteer work. When he found those pursuits failed to fill the hours in the day, he began to write. His debut novel, SUN, SAND, MURDER, won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. John and his wife, Irene, divide their time between homes in Northern Ohio and Florida.
Sun, Sand, Murder
Michele Leber
Booklist.
112.22 (Aug. 1, 2016): p38.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Sun, Sand, Murder. By John Keyse-Walker. Sept. 2016. 288p. Minotaur, $24.99 (9781250088291); e-book, $11.99 (9781250088307).
Murder is so rare on the Virgin Island of Anegada--the previous one occurred in 1681--that it attracts a firestorm of attention. Anegadas Royal
Virgin Island Police Force's longtime special constable Teddy Creque is reprimanded for moving the body (to protect it from further scavenging
by crabs and seagulls) and summarily taken off the case. But he continues to look for the killer of Boston biologist Paul Kelliher, who was
researching local iguanas. Teddy knows the island and its inhabitants, but even so, his probings lead only to more questions, first about Kelliher's
identity and then about what he was really doing on the island, and finally about the code book found in his belongings. Matters heat up when a
local character known as De White Rasta volunteers to break the code and is promptly assaulted and nearly killed. Meanwhile, Teddy attempts to
assuage his guilt over an ill-advised affair that has endangered his 20year marriage. A strong debut that vividly evokes its Caribbean locale,
Keyse-Walker's tale is the winner of St. Martin's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition.--Michele Leber
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Leber, Michele. "Sun, Sand, Murder." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 38. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460761705&it=r&asid=0758ed6eaad723915414f28a62d891e5. Accessed 12 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460761705
---
4/11/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1491970630933 2/2
Sun, Sand, and Murder
Publishers Weekly.
263.27 (July 4, 2016): p43.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Sun, Sand, and Murder
John Keyse-Walker. Minotaur, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-250-08829-1
Keyse-Walker's appealing debut, set in Anegada, the northernmost of the British Virgin Islands, won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of
America First Crime Novel Award in 2015. Since the island has not had a murder since 1681, Teddy Creque, a special constable in the Royal
Virgin Islands Police Force, has no experience to draw on when Paul Kelliher, an American professor studying the local iguanas, is shot to death
on a quiet beach. Creque's rigid superior, Deputy Commissioner Howard Lane, reprimands Creque, who moved the body to a tent to protect it
from the voracious crabs and gulls, for altering the crime scene. Creque, who gets nowhere when he tries to notify the victim's next of kin,
believes that Kelliher was involved in treasure hunting, but Lane is convinced drug traffic is more likely and calls in the Drug Enforcement
Agency from the U.S. Creque, with his honor and job at stake, rises to the challenge of catching a killer, but he succeeds only at great personal
cost in the surprise ending. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sun, Sand, and Murder." Publishers Weekly, 4 July 2016, p. 43. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA457302870&it=r&asid=2a8ea9f58c77f961159987f71f6ad9a0. Accessed 12 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A457302870
FRESH MEAT
Review: Sun, Sand, Murder by John Keyse-Walker
JENNY MALONEY
Sun, Sand, Murder by John Keyse-Walker is the debut novel from the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award winner (Available September 13, 2016).
The last murder to take place on the isle of Anegada, located in the British Virgin Islands, happened in 1681 and involved pirates. So it’s no wonder that when biologist Paul Killiher is murdered—shot in the head—the small island’s Special Constable Teddy Creque finds himself in over his head. Creque stumbles hard enough through processing his first crime scene to be pulled off the investigation. The only thing the “real” police officers of the British Virgin Islands are willing to let Creque handle is contacting Killiher’s next-of-kin.
Creque, hoping to keep his job, follows instructions and works to find Killiher’s family. There’s only one snag: Killiher doesn’t seem to exist. The “biologist’s” passport is false, his license is false, and no one on the island or the American mainland seems to know who he is. To keep the case from going cold and to catch a murderer terrorizing his small island home, Creque decides to investigate despite strict orders from higher-up to do nothing.
Sun, Sand, and Murder by John Keyse-Walker is an original novel filled with lively characters and fascinating locations. Teddy Creque, our main character, adds an element of suspense in that he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing. Therefore, he could do anything. Readers familiar with police procedure may start yelling at the pages early: “Don’t do that!!” But the fact that Keyse-Walker is willing and able to have his main character make mistakes is refreshing. It allows the reader to follow along with his learning process, and there’s plenty Creque does understand...
Like his island home. Having grown up on Anegada (population: 200), Creque knows the topography. Anegada becomes a character in and of itself, filled with strange features like a hostile desert inland, luxurious houses, diving holes, and beautiful beaches—all with flavorful names like Cow Wreck Bay, the Settlement, Bone Bight, and Horseshoe Reef. Keyse-Walker does a lovely job creating a sense of place:
The Land Rover had a siren but I did not use it. I had never used it. The dozen or so vehicles on Anegada rarely encountered each other on the interior roads. The greater hazard on the road is feral cattle. Descendants of the survivors of a cattle boat sinking in the 1930s, the skeletal cows, bulls, and calves move like molasses, unfazed by horns, shouts or sirens. After maneuvering around a half dozen of the feeble beasts, I reached the lip of pavement marking the beginning of a quarter mile of concrete road and the outer boundary of Anegada’s only town, if it can be called that, The Settlement.
The Settlement is where I grew up and where most of Anegada’s two hundred souls live. There are no grocery stores, no pharmacies, no banks, and no fast-food restaurants there. Goats and chickens roam the sand lanes between small shacks baking in treeless yards marked by low limestone walls.
But, there’s more to Anegada than washboard roads. The characters that populate this small island are larger-than-life. Even Creque himself, who says, “Living in a simple place does not always make a simple life.” And how! Keyse-Walker presents Creque as a hard-working man who has four jobs: police constable, customs officer, tour guide, and a shift worker at the power plant. He’s also a family man with a wife and two kids. All of this makes him quite likeable and relatable.
Then, you meet his mistress, beautiful helicopter pilot Cat Wells. So, now we understand Creque is a cheater, which makes his motives more complex. How will he navigate his personal life, which is about to implode, right when his professional life is imploding?
Creque is well-placed among the complex locals. There’s Killiher, the murdered biologist who is not a biologist. There’s Belle, the proprietor of Cow Wreck Beach Bar and Grill. There’s Wendell George, the rich pirate treasure-hunter and his French Mistress, who speaks to no one.
And then, there’s De White Rasta—a Character with a capital C. De White Rasta is the one who discovers Killiher’s body. When we first meet him, De White Rasta is toked up (his normal state of affairs), with bloodshot eyes and tangled blond dreadlocks. When Creque asks De White Rasta to take him to the body, De White Rasta is reluctant to show him.
The whites of De Rasta’s bloodshot eyes grew wide and he gave an emphatic shake of his dirty blond dreadlocks. “Mon, I-mon not go back to where dat dead mon be lie-ins. I-mon nah go deh ever again. Dat place fulla duppies.”
I suspected the Rastafarian ghosts, the “duppies” that De White Rasta had seen had more to do with his cannabis intake than his eyesight.
Turns out there’s a lot more to De White Rasta than meets the bloodshot eye. His real name is Anthony Wedderburn—the son of a member of the British House of Lords.
“Ghosts are as real as you and me, Teddy,” De White Rasta said, his fake Jamaican patois replaced with an Eton-Oxford accent. I had heard De White Rasta’s speech undergo this transformation many times before but it still disconcerted me every time he made the leap from Caribbean rustic to English aristocrat.
All of these multi-leveled characters—and more—come together in a mish-mash of mystery and mixed-up motives, which makes Sun, Sand, Murder a fun read to finish out the summer. It’s intriguing to watch Creque navigate the ins-and-outs of the island, especially since procedures and training are so different than those found in traditional crime novels. The investigation can go in any direction, which gives this John Keyse-Walker’s debut novel plenty of room to offer the reader a twist-turny ride.
John Keyse-Walker: Sun, Sand, Murder
Posted by Agatha on September 26, 2016
sunsandMr. Keyse-Walker is the winner of the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel award (the award being publication), so I turned to it with some interest. Past winners of Minotaur/St. Martin’s contests include Steve Hamilton, Michael Koryta and Julia Spencer-Fleming, so the bar is somewhat high. I was at first jarred as I opened a novel set on tiny Anegada, a remote member of the British Virgin Islands. The main character is special constable Teddy Creque, who is a native islander. The author, a lawyer from Ohio, couldn’t seem more removed from his character, but then I decided the guy who wrote Memoirs of a Geisha wasn’t very much like his character either, so I settled in.
Keyse-Walker is a natural storyteller. While some of the tropes are familiar—the small town cop (the “town” just happens to be one of the Virgin Islands, so his beat includes the beach), the sidekick, the mistress and the chaotic and expected family life—Keyse-Walker adds his own sparkle to the proceedings, making reading this novel very enjoyable.
I especially loved the sidekick, De White Rasta, a white English man who spends his days happily stoned, sleeping on the beach, and bothering nobody. When De White Rasta alerts the police that he’s found a body, Teddy isn’t sure whether to believe him, and takes him along on a bumpy jeep ride, only to indeed discover a dead body covered with scavenging tiny crabs. The body, that of a professor studying the island’s iguanas, raises more questions than it answers. Who would want to kill a man studying iguanas who lived in the back of a bar, all his belongings stored in plastic crates?
Teddy gets into a bit of trouble as he moves the body (and throws up next to it) thus destroying the crime scene; he’s put on suspension, to take place later, and ordered not to investigate. This is a mystery novel, however, so of course Teddy investigates, with the help of De White Rasta, perhaps one of my favorite sidekicks in recent memory.
In fact, while this novel was expected in many ways, it was unexpected in many others, including the excellent denouement and surprising solution to the crime. The setting was the icing on the cake, and if you’ve ever visited the Virgin Islands, you’ll realize it’s pretty authentic. I found myself smiling along with Teddy as he attempted to crack his first case. I hope there will be more.