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A Good Angle for a Story
Mystery at the Hidden River follows a retired engineer as his professional expertise draws him into investigating the suspicious death of a fellow engineer on the Northern California coast. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The suspicious death of a colleague is the setup for the revealing of a dangerous landslide on the Hidden River. I learned of a similar landslide in my disaster-related work many years ago, and thought that such a threat would be a good angle for a story. Of course, Hidden River was completed months before the terrible Nepal flash flood, which showed in reality the sort of threat posed by a landslide that could temporarily block a river.
What kind of emotional experience did you want readers to have between moments of suspense?
To be carried along in Jace Carter’s life as he deals with things on a daily basis. Mr. Carter is in many ways an ‘everyman,’ in that he does ordinary things as anyone does, but is drawn into these extraordinary situations. By walking with Jace as he seeks to solve the ordinary problems of living, the reader shares his emotions and confusion as he faces the puzzling and sometimes frightening aspects of his investigation.
How does the landscape become part of the mystery?
The fictional Hidden River is an interesting draw into the story. In the storyline, early European explorers noticed that fresh water could be found in a certain place out at sea, but there was no visible source at the shore. There is a real parallel in history with the Amazon River that way, though with the Amazon the fresh water was available many miles from visible land. In this case, the fictional Hidden River is ‘cloaked’ by the many cliffs around and behind the river mouth that all look the same from the ocean.
The landslide threat is also looming in the story and is not discovered by Jace Carter and the law until the dead engineer’s office is searched. The drug dealer’s den is also discovered at the same time, and the difficult terrain in the Coastal Mountains makes such a secretive location believable.
If you could ask Jace Carter one question, what would it be?
When will your life become normal?
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Mystery at the Hidden River
J. Clifford Barnes’s Mystery at the Hidden River is a warm, engaging mystery built around an unusual kind of amateur detective. Jace Carter is a retired civil engineer in his mid-60s who’d be perfectly content tending his garden, drinking good coffee, and enjoying a quiet life on the Northern California coast. Instead, the suspicious death of fellow engineer Dustin Macky draws him into an investigation where his professional knowledge becomes every bit as valuable as traditional police work. Hydrology calculations, engineering files, building permits, geological hazards, and development plans all become clues, giving the story a personality that feels grounded in the way real people actually solve complicated problems.
Jace is the heart of the book. He’s practical, observant, good-humored, and refreshingly comfortable with who he is. His narration makes room for sandwiches, fishing trips, gardening, coffee, storm preparation, and the everyday inconveniences of retirement alongside murder and criminal conspiracy. Those details give Inglesee, Seacrest, and the Hidden River area the comfortable familiarity of places the reader can picture living in. They also make the danger more effective when it arrives. An enormous atmospheric river, a threatened harbor, an escaped suspect, a firebombing, and a corporate scheme all become more immediate because they’re happening to someone who’d really rather be repairing a planter box or reading in his easy chair.
The mystery itself grows naturally from Dustin Macky’s engineering work. What begins with a dead man and a disordered stack of hydrologic calculations expands into the threat posed by the Buck Starr Landslide, an illegal growing operation, a powerful development company with designs on Hidden River Harbor, and a suspicious harbor board member with connections that run deeper than anyone first realizes. Barnes keeps these threads moving through Jace’s particular way of thinking. He notices inconsistencies, understands what technical information means in practical terms, and often finds solutions because he knows how government agencies, contractors, engineers, and local institutions actually function. That gives the investigation an appealing nuts-and-bolts quality while still leaving room for danger, misdirection, and a satisfying escalation toward the solution.
What makes Mystery at the Hidden River especially enjoyable is the combination of small-town mystery, procedural problem-solving, coastal atmosphere, and an older protagonist who discovers that retirement hasn’t made him any less useful. Jace doesn’t become a different person in order to solve the case. His experience, patience, curiosity, and accumulated knowledge are exactly what make him effective. By the end, the investigation has pushed him into serious danger, exposed a much larger criminal operation, and even forced him to rethink how he can keep helping law enforcement without making himself an easy target. His resulting notion of becoming an “undercover volunteer sleuth” feels like both a satisfying conclusion and an inviting promise of more adventures ahead. Mystery at the Hidden River turns the practical wisdom of a retired engineer into the secret weapon of a smart, personable mystery you’ll want to follow wherever Jace Carter goes next.
Pages: 88 | ASIN : B0HBT7SK9Y
I Left That Possibility Open
Mystery at the Edge of the World follows a retired civil engineer in coastal California whose peaceful retirement is disrupted when he’s drawn into a murder investigation. What inspired the premise of the story?
I’ve thought about using an engineer as the protagonist in a mystery novel for a number of years. In this book, Jace is retired with a comfortable pension, so he doesn’t need to worry about making a living, which frees him to spend whatever time is needed to solve puzzles.
What made you choose a retired engineer, rather than a former police officer or detective, as your amateur sleuth?
There are many mystery stories, in fact, series of stories, where the sleuth is a doctor, a mathematician, a novelist, a lawyer, or even a clergyman. We live in a world full of infrastructure, and there are many stories that could be made from the world of construction alone, never mind all the other interactions people have with the engineered facilities around them, along with each other. But someone has to be at least a little versed in engineering in order to write about an engineer investigating a crime. There is, in fact, an entire discipline called ‘forensic engineering’ which looks at the causes of infrastructure failure, and can unearth criminal activity in the process. So, for me, this subgenre of an amateur engineer sleuth seems under-represented in literature, and looked like a field I could write in, while being entertaining and human at the same time.
Did you know who the culprit was before you started writing, or did the investigation evolve as you went?
I did not have the culprit pegged when I started writing. I left that possibility open as I wrote it, but towards the end, the red herrings swam away, and the culprit remained.
The ending leaves room for more adventures. Do you already know where Jace’s next case might take him?
Yes. I just finished the next novel, Mystery at the Hidden River, where Jace is invited to help with a case that eventually proves to be industrial espionage – and murder.
Author Links: Amazon | Website
Mystery at the Edge of the World
Mystery at the Edge of the World, by J. Clifford Barnes, is a cozy, small-town mystery centered on Jace Carter, a recently retired civil engineer living in the foggy coastal community of Inglesee, California. Jace expects retirement to consist of gardening, fishing, good coffee, and quiet afternoons, but the disappearance of his former coworker, Al Meyers, pulls him into a murder investigation. The book combines an amateur detective story with the comfortable rhythms of everyday life, giving readers a mystery that feels relaxed and approachable even when the stakes become serious.
Jace is an appealing narrator because he’s observant, practical, and refreshingly ordinary. He doesn’t have special training as an investigator, but his engineering background helps him organize facts and notice connections. His dry humor also makes his voice enjoyable. When describing his retirement strategy, he says, “The key is to not go anywhere.” That line captures his personality well. He enjoys his peaceful routine, but he’s curious enough to leave it behind when something doesn’t add up. His gardening, meals, naps, and coffee-shop visits make him feel like a person with a full life rather than simply a character moving from clue to clue.
The mystery begins with Al’s strange interest in geopolymers and the large amount of money he wants to invest. Barnes uses Jace’s professional knowledge to explain the material and its possible uses without separating the information from the story. As Jace learns more about Al’s money, his abrupt retirement, and his frightened behavior, the investigation expands naturally. The discovery of Al’s body raises the tension, while the missing funds provide a clear trail for Jace and Detective Sam Roblee to follow. The technical and financial details give the case an unusual identity and fit well with Jace’s experience.
The coastal setting adds plenty of atmosphere. Inglesee is filled with mist, Victorian houses, cliffs, local businesses, and familiar residents who make the town feel lived in. The plot also maintains a conversational pace, moving between interviews, domestic routines, and moments of danger. A shooting at Jace’s home gives the later chapters a sharper edge, and the final confrontation delivers an energetic payoff. Jace’s conclusion that “There is no peace for the wicked” neatly expresses the book’s view of guilt, greed, and the consequences of believing stolen money can create a better future.
Mystery at the Edge of the World is an inviting amateur detective novel with a distinctive older protagonist and an interesting construction-industry angle. Its strongest quality is the way it blends murder, engineering, retirement, and community life into one consistent story. Jace solves the case by paying attention to people, timing, money, and small inconsistencies, which makes the resolution feel connected to everything that came before it. The ending also leaves him open to future investigations, and his combination of patience, technical knowledge, and quiet curiosity could carry him through many more mysteries.
Pages: 101 | ASIN : B0H3GVPW3G
Complex Emotions
Cecily’s Choice centers around a watercolor artist who is facing the professional challenge of completing a major hotel commission as she is forced to face the family tragedy she fled years prior. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?
I wanted to create a story about the challenges of overcoming a traumatic past and incorporate elements of mystery and, eventually, reconciliation and hope. I used a young adult as the protagonist because many times what one thinks as a teenager is not the same outlook one has as a young adult due to maturity. I used a young lady artist, Cecily, because she would have more reader sympathy in dealing with complex emotions than a young man would evoke (in our culture, young men are more often told to bury and “deal with” their emotions rather than express them). I am very familiar with the issues of producing art because my wife of over 40 years is a professional artist. Finally, I wanted to place the setting in one of my favorite places, Mendocino.
Cecily’s return home is both a professional assignment and an emotional reckoning. Why was it important to intertwine those two journeys?
The professional assignment is vital because (1) she needs money, and (2) the work forces her to go to a place she knows well, the beautiful and stunning Mendocino Coast, where she can easily paint numerous subjects for the work. But the assignment forces her at the same time to deal with the scars of her past, something she ran away from and tried adamantly to avoid. It forces her to have new memories of the place she once escaped from.
The novel suggests that returning home doesn’t necessarily mean returning to the past. What does “home” mean to you?
Home is a place of rest and refuge, a place of community, respect, and love.
What do you hope readers take away about forgiveness—both of others and of themselves?
Everyone makes mistakes, but they don’t have to define who you are unless you allow them to. Rising above a broken or dismal past is a common pattern among positive people. Others are also imperfect, so to have good relations with others, one must forgive. It also takes bravery to forgive.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Cecily’s Choice
Cecily’s Choice is a contemporary family drama with mystery elements about Cecily MacIntyre, a young watercolor artist who returns to Mendocino under pressure to complete a major hotel commission. What begins as a professional challenge soon becomes something much more personal when Cecily is forced to face the family tragedy she fled years earlier, including the fire that killed her mother and the disappearance of her brother, Allison. The story follows her through work, memory, fear, and reunion as she begins to understand that going home is not the same as going backward.
I appreciated how the book ties Cecily’s art to her inner life. The painting scenes are not just decorative. They show how she sees the world, and more importantly, how that vision changes as she starts to heal. At first, the coast is a workplace and a deadline. Then it becomes memory. Then inheritance. The author makes strong use of the Mendocino setting, and I could feel the cold air, the cliffs, the ocean, and the stubborn quiet of the place. Sometimes the story is direct, almost plainspoken, but that works for the kind of story being told because it feels sincere.
What stood out to me most was the book’s interest in courage. Not loud courage. Not heroic speeches. The quieter kind. Cecily has to keep painting even when she is afraid she will fail. Allison has to come back to a past he barely understands. Audrey has to let old wounds into the room instead of keeping them neatly folded away. I did find some turns in the plot a bit convenient, especially near the end, but I also understood the emotional purpose behind those choices. This is not a cynical book. It wants restoration to be possible, and there is something refreshing about that.
I would recommend Cecily’s Choice to readers who enjoy gentle contemporary fiction, family-centered drama, and stories about artists finding their footing. It will especially appeal to those who like books about returning home, rebuilding broken ties, and discovering that the work we thought might break us can sometimes lead us back to ourselves.
Pages: 112 | ASIN : B0H3CQQ1KL
