Mary Blomgren, Ph. D.
A toss-up of good and evil surrounded by breathtaking beauty and ugly surprises – a compelling history of one family and all the people affected by them unfolds in beautiful South Florida and the Florida Keys. Sunshine, a bookshop, and a murder seduce three retired professors into becoming detectives. Minnesota, Iowa, Philadelphia and Baltimore add spice to the plot.
South Florida and the Florida Keys are Paradise. Like roses, Paradise has many thorns. None of the thorns are prickly enough to be worth leaving alone. Challenge and pain are worth writing about, thinking about, and breathing in and out on a daily basis.
A corrupt Condo is the setting for a murder and other mayhem. Many a new Floridian is shocked by the beauty of Florida and the ugliness of power. Our characters explore all motives and opportunities for accepting the culture shock they travel through together.
Thorns of Paradise is Mary Blomgren's first work of fiction. She is published in articles and workbooks on the field of Addiction Recovery. Volunteering and writing in the beautiful Florida Sun has stimulated this work. Recipe for Recovery is the most current work. The characters in Thorns of Paradise will solve another murder and become the expressions of Mary's imagination and experiences, as she remains dedicated to the truth about addiction and the beauty of Recovery.
Cast of Characters – Some Prickly Details
Frances Ann Framer and Margaret Marie Albertson of Minnesota and Baltimore respectively are life-long friends. Both women are retired therapists, finally free of the constraints of city life in the Greater Baltimore/Washington area, smack-dab in the middle of the East Coast hurry-and-do-twice-as-much-to-be-even culture next door to the inside-the-Beltway power base called our Nation’s Capital. Frances and Margaret now live lives of books and people’s minds, stirred more slowly in the Florida sun, surrounded by ocean breezes and comfortable boredom.
Joe Swenson, a scoundrel realtor and restaurateur, and Joshua Johansson, uncle to June Jacobson and lover to Frances, round out the Keys culture. Regular customers and breathtaking heat slow the pace and heal the souls of many.
Adolph Arnold Heart and his childhood next-door neighbor and life-long friend Marcella (Marcie) Morgan Glyndon, widow of Ernie Glyndon of Philadelphia, live on the beach in Boca Raton, Florida, close enough to Frances and Margaret to maintain the relationships developed in Maryland. The Countess Corrine Croft Anderson of East Hampton is Adolph’s next-door neighbor now and more, of course. Marcie’s lover is named Frank, and he brings a grandson Jason and various other relatives into Marcie’s once tranquil and organized life.
The accidental detectives Jake Smith, Historian, John Jones, Psychologist and Jill Aiken, Criminologist, are tourists when the culture of Frances’ life surprises and seduces them into an adventure in book editing and evidence analysis. Dr. Jesus Alvarez plays an important part in this analysis and in everyone’s changing life. Dr. A., so nicknamed by all who know his work, molds the future by clearing the wreckage of the past.
Some people die or are missing from the Mirage, a condo community on the ocean. Herman Folsom, a property manager, is found dead, and Rita Collins, a bookkeeper, disappears.
Bubba Smithfield, a corrupt Mirage Board Director, is the power behind a local sheriff. Along with his friends Barry Barnes and Marianne and Harold (Sam) Hammond, Smithfield terrorizes the Mirage condo owners. A management employee, one Roy Regan, a parolee beholden to the sheriff’s kindness, works for the Mirage Condo Association. His job description is suspect.
Mark Rosen is a young lawyer and counselor to Frederick Glyndon, CEO of Philadelphia Chemicals and nephew to Marcie Glyndon, our murder suspect and recovering alcoholic. Frederick manages the affairs of his beloved aunt and is alarmed by her missing money and memory. Working with Detective Earl Scott of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department, Mark Rosen helps Frances Framer and her friends untangle the many threads of this mystery.
