The Grab

John Stella promises to help a friend unravel the murder of her sister and goes to Sarasota Florida. There he unearths a conspitacy among a group of leading citizens to acquire an exteremely valuable piece of land by using an ex-con to murder the owners of the land. With the help of Ellie Grasso, a local police detective and after several very painful encounters with thugs working for the conspirators, he brings the bad guys to justice.

John Stella goes from his home in Hamilton New Hampshire to Sarasota Florida to look into the murder of a friend's sister. There he begins to work with the local police and in particular Detective Sargeant Ellie Grasso. He is immediately taken with the sheer beauty of the town and the sheer corruption of its ruling elite. With the help of a grizzled local reporter, he begins to realize the potential connections that might have produced the murder and possibly other murders. The conspirators are after several parcels of land whose value will be greatly enhanced by the coming of an Olympic training facility and are using an ex-convict to murder the owners in the nursing homes where they reside. John comes t0o the attention of the bad guys and is soundly beaten, kidnapped and threatened with death, only to be saved by Ellie's timely intervention. Ultimately, he tracks down the actual murderer in the swamps of central Florida, unravels the conspiracy an brings the perpetrators to justice. By this time, he and Ellie are a couple and he decides to spend at least half the year in his new-found paradise.

John Tuccillo is an economist, Author and consultant currently living in Atlanta Georgia. As his day job began winding down, he took to writing crime fiction (although some would argue that his economic writings were also fiction.) This is his fourth book in the John Stella series, whose protagonist is a former detective turned academic. Late in life the author has discovered the sheer joy of making things up.