But Rick Rose, the endearing creation of Chico novelist (and retired dentist) Mike Paull, is not lamenting. He’s become a forensic odontologist. “It looks good and sounds a lot better than unemployed. You see, for the last four years I’ve spent a lot of time in the morgue, working for Dr. Alexandra Keller, the chief medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco.”
Now, in late 2023, the morgue contains the body of an unknown man who had, at 3:00 am one morning, jumped to his death from the Golden Gate bridge (alas, before the nets were installed). Yet it turns out that’s not exactly what killed him. So Rose is tasked with determining the identity of “The Jumper” ($15.95 in paperback from Amazon; also available in a Kindle edition).
Something under the victim’s tongue may be a clue. What Rose discovers leads to an oncologist, a maker of leather bags, the owner of an exclusive apartment complex, a taxi driver, and a bucketload of cash.
Rick, 40, lives alone, except for his feisty cat Einstein inherited from a failed marriage (though he and his ex are on somewhat friendly terms; she sells coffee from a truck he helped her buy). When he learns that Josie has been taken advantage of financially by a shyster, he resolves to track him down. Little does he realize the two seemingly disparate investigations will have international implications and put his life at risk.
Over the course of three novels (including “The Mouth Mechanic” and “The Head Case”), Paull gives readers a character worth cheering for, a man who can be a wee bit sarcastic as the occasion demands. But Rick Rose is good at what he does, and so is Paull. “The Jumper” propels readers from chapter to chapter until the very end but (one can hope) not the end of the Rick Rose series.
