Cold Water Crossing tells the story of a cold winter evening when three women were unexpectedly left alone on Smuttynose Island when their companions were forced to stay overnight on the mainland. A killer learned of the situation, stole a boat and rowed ten miles to commit a despicable crime. Yet one woman survived the night and returned to provide evidence that resulted in the killer's execution three years later.
My career was in finance as a controller and chief financial officer. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in business and finance. Now retired, I live with my wife, Linda, in Manchester, CT. We have four children and seven grandchildren. Retirement gave me the time I needed to devote to writing. Over the years, I found that some of the worst writing occurs in business communications, consequently I strive to avoid stilted, boring language. It was only after completing my book and editing it many times that I began to learn the intricacies of good writing, that is, eliminating the use of passive voice, redundancies, cliches etc., shortening sentences and using active verbs. I'm still learning. Next, I focused on creating a good pace and building suspense. I believe I have accomplished my goal and along the way, created an interesting and readable book based on the facts as I was able to uncover them.
Cold Water Crossing is a story worth telling. I have not been able to locate another full length book on the subject although several shorter versions exist. Anita Shreve used the event as a sub plot in her well received Weight of Water, published in 1995. In it, she used an unfounded rumor that Maren Hontvet wrote a deathbed confession that she was the murderer thereby absolving the convicted killer, Louis Wagner. The preponderance of evidence, however, points to Wagner and this is what I want to bring out in my book. Those who enjoyed reading Ms. Shreve's book may want to check my book to get a different perspective of the crime.
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