Death on Daugherty Creek (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781523443741)

Gabe is an accountant. He is also a nosy guy; not that he's willing to accept that he's especially nosy---prying, meddling, intrusive. And this perfectly normal curiosity and an urge to help his friends, relatives, coworkers, clients (some that he doesn't even like), and to aid various officers of the law whom Gabe befriends (even if they don't want him to) gets him into situations.

Situations in which he has to figure out who exactly is trying to blow him up, bludgeon him, shoot, stab, strangle, or otherwise end him. The various officers of the law sometimes hinder more than help, but Gabe perseveres and triumphs in the end. Sort of.

This is the first of a series of 15+ mysteries and introduces our hero. Who is not exactly bumbling or inept, but "masterful" is not a word that springs to mind to describe Gabriel Henri Bergeron, CPA.

Gabe goes to meet his best friend (since they were five years old) at an idyllic state park on the shores of the idyllic Chesapeake Bay. Gabe is hoping that said friend (Neal is also an accountant) is going to end his partnership with a sketchy, not to say slimy, accountant by the name of Eric Duncan Girard. Events render that particular concern moot. Events like the detonation of a medium-sized bomb.