YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I CAN TRUST
Author
Michael E. Petrie
California surfer, sailor, horseman, and writer Michael E. Petrie was selected most promising new author by South Bay Writers Guild, has won two Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Writing awards, Texas Bar Journal fiction writing contest, 2008 National Legal Fiction Writing Competition award, Best New Fiction Author at La Jolla Writers Seminar, and is a frequent contributor to numerous newspapers and magazines, including: SAIL – World’s Leading Sailing Magazine, The Californian, Western Horseman, Pacific Skipper, New York Bar Journal, Western Legal Journal, Southwestern Law Digest, and Web Law Review. This is Michael E. Petrie’s first full-length legal/mystery novel, the story inspired by the author’s observations and experiences as a practicing lawyer over a 25 year span in the courts of California, New York, Washington, D.C. and Texas. He lives in Southern California with his wife, teenage children, 2 dogs and a horse.
Description
The glint of a gun barrel caught his eye – it was the second to last thing Griffin Gambil would ever see. There was a loud, percussive pop, a spume of red. In the time it takes to pull a trigger, the bullet smashes into his skull. Los Angeles real estate mogul Griffin Gambil spends the final seconds of his life watching his own blood spilling onto his Gucci loafers before collapsing in the driveway of his mistress’s house – the ink on his Last Will and Testament still wet. Meanwhile, in another part of L.A., attorney Benjamin Harding – feeling jilted by the legal system – is turning his back on the practice of law after twenty years. Ben now looks forward to spending his days as a carefree sun worshiper and people watcher along one of Southern California’s most fascinating stretches of sand, Venice Beach. Ben is just settling into his new life when he is contacted by the long lost love from his youth: newly widowed, Samantha Zimmer-Gambil. With the death of her rich husband only days before, Samantha asks Ben to handle the probate of the estate. Finding the woman of his dreams once again available, Ben reluctantly agrees to take on this one last legal case, what he assumes will be a simple probate matter, and win back his former heart throb. The case, however, quickly exceeds what he intended. Officially ruled as suicide, Samantha is certain her husband was murdered, enlisting Ben to go above and beyond the call of your average probate attorney in trying to discover who killed Griffin Gambil, her late husband. Was it the mistress, to whom Griffin’s will left everything and who, Ben discovers, has a criminal record along with her penchant for bizarre sex play? Also, Griffin Gambil had a betrayed business partner, cheated out of a fortune by the deceased, with more than enough motive to do the deed. And why is Ben suddenly being terrorized by a dangerous looking thug with a warning to get out of the case? Searching for clues takes the reader on a fun but dangerous romp, surfing and sailing through the ocean communities of Los Angeles and offshore to the isles of Santa Catalina and Hawaii. YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I CAN TRUST offers up a fine webbing of plot twists, unusual suspects, aspects of travelogue, legal primer, and a touch of the bizarrely erotic, spun together in a murder mystery that will keep the reader guessing right to the final page.
Book excerpt
Cyrus Franks was having the absolute time of his life. A wealthy sixty-two year-old man, clearly still in his prime some might say – though it is unlikely anyone younger than fifty would make such a statement – Cyrus was still a relatively handsome fellow. He suffered from neither the middle-age spreading of his mid-section nor the hair loss so common to men his age. Even though he seldom exercised, Cyrus remained fairly trim, a condition he attributed to the stress of the business world which, he claimed, burned calories faster than jogging. His dark hair, peppered with just the correct amount of gray, gave rise to a sophisticated “older gentleman” appearance. Pricey designer clothing completed the persona of the well-to-do. Cyrus always liked to say the only difference between a dirty old man and a sophisticated elderly gentleman was the amount in his bank account. He would say this with just the hint of a smile, never an out-and-out laugh, so that the listener was never quite certain if Cyrus was making a serious observation or speaking in jest. Cyrus Franks had a wife. An attractive brunette-cum-blonde with a remarkable figure that belied her forty-five years. He would have been quite satisfied with such a wife, except that she was sexually frigid as a block of ice. So, Cyrus had a girlfriend . . . a mistress, really. For every problem there was a solution, Cyrus believed. Unbeknownst to Cyrus, his wife was not as repelled by sexual activity as he would have believed. It’s just that she had been fornicating in her mind with another man for so long that she no longer thought of her husband as a sexual being. Otherwise, Cyrus’s wife had, for much of their fifteen years together, been completely content sharing a passionless life with her husband. Few things in life surprised Cyrus anymore. But he was somewhat taken aback when his wife, out-of-the-blue, announced that she was leaving him. She moved out and began shacking up with a man from her distant past who suddenly reemerged, re-claiming her like chattel that had merely been on temporary loan to Cyrus. Cyrus tried to take it in stride, convincing himself that it hardly mattered. Without the distractions of a wife hanging around, he could now concentrate more fully on his business. Additionally, his wife leaving him was the best thing to happen to Cyrus’s sex life in years. He could now more easily spend time with his mistress. Physically, Cyrus’s mistress was everything his wife was not – his wife was tall, large breasted and beautiful. Cyrus’s wife and his mistress were polar opposites in personality and character as well. His wife had always treated him respectfully and truthfully. Cyrus’s mistress, on the other hand, abused and mistreated him and was a habitual liar. Cyrus’s wife left without taking a dime; his mistress demanded every dollar she could squeeze out of him. Yet, he had never before felt such contentment in his entire life.
Genre Fiction
Author Website
Best place to buy your book
Email mp@petrielaw.com
Twitter
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068026567700
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38724056-you-re-the-only-one-i-can-trust
Instagram
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7rETlIVz5Q