The Ice Cream War, a Mystery of Hot Fudge and Murder

by Paul Janson

Overview

Mary has her own troubles, a law degree that she is afraid to use, a father who thinks that at thirty five she ought to be married and then an old high school classmate, Jerry, returns from California to visit his crazy aunt and opens an ice cream shop. The problem is, Mary has an ice cream shop in the same little town and the ice cream war begins, at least for Mary. Jerry doesn’t seem to understand since he is giving away his ice cream. Things cannot go on like this for long and they don’t. A body is found in Jerry’s shop the evening of his first day open. The victim turns out to be an old girlfriend of jerry’s from California and she was shot to death at close range. Jerry seems to know a lot about street life and “wasting people” and oh yes, a lot about the drugs, bath salts that are found on the murdered lady. Even so Mary cannot believe Jerry could have murdered anyone and she reluctantly decides to try to prove someone else did the shooting.
There is no lack of other candidates for her to choose from: Jerry’s aunt May is crazy after her husband George ran off with al the money he could get a hold of, ran off with his secretary Jessica. They made it to Florida but haven’t been heard of in four years since. George did own a gun that could have killed Jerry’s friend. May’s brothers are making sure what money is left is not being spent by May so they can inherit it. They see Jerry as a threat and try to convince him to leave their town, try to convince him with tire irons and baseball bats. There are some other locals that are convinced May has money her husband didn’t take with him. If this were not enough one of Jerry’s friends from California shows up and turns out to have been following Jerry. Dhe arrived the day before the murder.
But Mary and Jerry have other things to worry about, like the vast that the DEA is convinced Jerry was supplying bath salts and that he killed his girlfriend. The DEA would like to arrest him and the murderer would like to kill him and Mary is try to run an ice cream shop hoping that Jerry isn’t arrested or killed but mostly that he doesn’t give away all her ice cream since he is working in her shop until his can be reopened. It is hot July though and things will work out if everyone will just relax and eat a little ice cream. They do.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940046429145
Publisher:	Paul Janson
Publication date:	10/19/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	669 KB

About the Author

Paul is a practicing physician and an award winning author. His first novel: Mal Practice was a finalist in the IPNE 2014 genre fiction book contest and his second novel Scratch was given a four star review by Indiereader The Ice Cream War is his third novel

Paul is the middle child of three boys, born and raised in New England. Though he is now a practicing Emergency Department physician, his formal education began at the Boston University College of Engineering. He worked briefly for NASA during the Apollo project where one of the engineers convinced him to apply to medical school. Paul went on to attend Boston University School of Medicine intending to pursue bio-medical research, but grew to like the practice of medicine too much to give it up.

While working at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center), Paul met his wife, Mary. She was his supervisor, but he somehow managed to get up the courage to ask her out and eventually, to marry him. That was 39 years ago. The couple spent their honeymoon year in Eastern Kentucky, Appalachia, because they wanted to go somewhere that really needed physicians. With breaks to return to their training, the year extended to six years. Paul and Mary understood that if they were not there, it was likely that no one else would have been. Exhausting work, but fulfilling.

Paul did end up doing research, publishing a dozen articles including three pieces in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. One of the articles outlined the response of patients with renal failure and bleeding, and became the basis for the current treatment of these patients, still in use almost forty years later.

Paul's favorite journal publication was co-authored by Deepak Chopra, who was an endocrinology fellow at the time. It was Deepak's first time being published, but certainly not his last!

Since that time Paul has certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Emergency Medicine. He practices now in Lawrence, MA, in one of the busiest ED's in the state, and in one of the most medically underserved areas in the state.

Paul is actively involved in teaching Family Practice residents, and was the director of the Massachusetts chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians' course on board exam review and preparation until five years ago when the course was closed.

He has written several articles for traditional print publications and online sites, along with a biweekly humor column in the local Newburyport, MA newspaper, titled: The Port Planet.

In addition to being a writer, Paul is a musician who performed locally, with recorded music available online.

Paul says "Mary and I live in Georgetown, MA, on a small farm of sorts with chickens and dogs and cats... and love. My family is one of my greatest joys, especially the adoption of my two daughters from Ecuador, now twenty years ago. They have added meaning to our lives and expanded our cultural adventures."