Guest Post: A Crushing Death

The Setting for A Crushing Death

By Marilyn Meredith

I love the California coast and its beach communities, particularly the small ones. My affection comes from growing up in Los Angeles and as a teen being able to take public transportation with my friends and visit the beach often. My family made excursions to many nearby beaches whenever we had a free summer weekend.

When my own family was growing up, we lived in Oxnard, one mile from the beach and from April until fall we trekked to the beach and spent as much time there as possible. At that time Oxnard and Hueneme beaches weren’t like they are today. There was public access to all the good places to swim and sun.

The Rocky Bluff in my series is much like the beach community of the earlier times in Oxnard. Because it is fictional, I moved it north to a place between Santa Barbara and Ventura, but still in Ventura County. If you try to find it, you’ll be disappointed because it’s completely fictional, including the bluff that gave the town its name.

I’ve written about Rocky Bluff so much, I can see it in my mind as well as a memory of any place I’ve ever been. I know the broken-down condemned pier and have used it in many of the mysteries. The sand dunes are much like those that my family and I traipsed over and settled near for barbecues.

Things are changing in Rocky Bluff, just like they change in any town. The low-rent cottages along the beach will soon be nothing but a memory as developers come in to build condos along the ocean front. Of course the city council expects this to bring in more revenue. Hopefully some of this revenue will be used to hire more police officers and purchase more up-to-date equipment. But that’s all in the future.

For now, the Rocky Bluff P.D struggles with being understaffed, underpaid and having to rely on Ventura County’s labs and coroner.

I love writing about this beach community.

F.M. aka Marilyn Meredith

A Crushing Death Blurb:

A pile of rocks is found on a dead body beneath the condemned pier, a teacher is accused of molesting a student, the new police chief is threatened by someone she once arrested for attacking women, and Officer Milligan’s teenage daughter is has a big problem.

Bio:

1. M. Meredith who is also known as Marilyn Meredith is nearing the number of 40 published books. Besides being an author she is a wife, mother, grandma and great-grandmother. Though the Rocky Bluff she writes about is fictional, she lived for over twenty-years in a similar small beach town. Besides having many law enforcement officers in her family she is counts many as friends. She teaches writing, loves to give presentations to writing and other groups, and is a member of Mystery Writers of America, three chapters of Sisters in Crime and on the board of Public Safety Writers Association.

Website: http://fictionforyou.com

Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

Buy: A Crushing Death

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Twitter: MarilynMeredith

Contest: Once again, the person who comments on the most blogs during this tour, can have a character named after them in the next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery. Tomorrow you can find me here:

http://jlgregerblog.blogspot.com/