CHECK IT OUT

Novelists often are inspired by that with which they’re most familiar

-- a good reason numerous Orange County writers set their sagas in local

landscapes. If you enjoy finding hometown haunts in fiction, you may

appreciate mysteries and romances by local authors.

A surf shop near Newport Pier is the home of Matt Murdock, the private

eye introduced in Robert Ray’s ‘Bloody Murdock.’ Hired to probe the auto

death of a beautiful young woman, the savvy detective careens into the

Southern California pornography industry before bringing the case to a

satisfying conclusion. He reappears in local venues in five other Robert

Ray thrillers.

Local sites are a frequent backdrop in Balboa resident Dean Koontz’s

novels. The suspense writer dispatches two police detectives to haunts

from Irvine to Costa Mesa to Newport Beach in ‘Dragon Tears,’ his best

seller about the search for a demonic serial killer with paranormal

abilities.

A Crystal Cove cottage is the base for Fiddler, a former cop teamed

with beautiful, financial whiz Fiora in Ann and Evan Maxwell’s Fiddler

and Fiora detective series. The action involves international espionage

and Silicon Valley exporting in ‘Just Another Day in Paradise,’ the first

of the Laguna Niguel writing duo’s mysteries.

Mission Viejo writer Maxine O’Callaghan sets her Delilah West sagas

throughout Orange County. In ‘Hit & Run,’ the sassy detective is tied up

at a South Coast Plaza jewelry store. In ‘Set Up,’ she turns up in a

locked fishing shack near Newport Pier.

‘There’s something about a perfect climate that sets off anything

terrible that’s happened. With so much physical beauty, crime is a

tremendous contrast,’ Callaghan explains. ‘My heroine loves the area, but

it doesn’t prevent her from seeing the dark side, the warts.’

A Laguna hotel, Santa Ana church and Newport shores are a few of the

home venues visited in T. Jefferson Parker’s ‘Laguna Heat,’ ‘Pacific

Beat’ and ‘Summer of Fear.’ In ‘The Blue Hour,’ the Laguna Canyon

writer’s newest page-turner, a cancer-ridden cop teamed with a thirtyish

beauty search local turf and surf for a ruthless serial killer.

If mysteries of the heart appeal, check out ‘Hank & Chloe,’ Jo-Ann

Mapson’s romance about a middle-aged professor smitten with a struggling

waitress ensconced in local canyons. The mismatched pair find themselves

working with Navajo Indians in Arizona in ‘Loving Chloe,’ the Costa Mesa

author’s sequel.

While not the setting for his historical nonfiction, the Newport Beach

Central Library is a frequent haunt of local writer Irwin Gellman. In his

new work, ‘The Contender: Richard Nixon, the Congress Years, 1946-1952,’

the author graciously acknowledges reference staff for assisting with his

research ‘with the greatest skill and ingenuity.’

* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public

Library. This week’s column is by Melissa Adams, in collaboration with

Susie Lamb-Hubbs.