House of Parrotise

About the Book

Jack Mayberry, a thin red-head bent on changing his laid-back, dull personality, begins his new career at 26 as a private eye in the L.A. area.  His first case is to find who removed over three million dollars buried in three suitcases in Griffith Park by an eccentric old banker. In his spare time, at his mother’s request, he investigates whether or not his step-father is being faithful.

With a lull in his first case, he takes on the additional case of solving who stole a $40,000 pearl necklace from an elderly woman living alone in a suite at the House of Parrotise, an exclusive hotel that offers guests the accompaniment of parrots in their rooms. His investigation rapidly expands when he suspicions that perhaps two recent deaths at the hotel, one reported as a suicide and the other as a natural death, as well as many reported thefts, could be linked to whoever stole the necklace. Falling in love with his client’s granddaughter, who becomes a suspect of the police in the case, accentuates his new self-identity problems.

Jack’s woes quickly worsen as he finds himself followed, threatened, accosted, kidnapped, and finally a fugitive of the law. In a daring episode he manages to find the bizarre mechanism and person responsible for the crimes. But can he extradite himself and his girlfriend from the plights they have gotten themselves into?

About the Author

Terry Larson was born in Glendale, Calif. in 1931. He graduated from San Fernando High School and then from UCLA with a B.A. degree in meteorology in 1953. He was employed at N.A.C.A. at Edwards, Calif. in the same year and fully retired from the site in 1995 as an aerospace engineer, working on the Space Shuttle program. He is now happily retired and writing mystery and science fiction. The parents of two boys, his wife Jean and he reside in Tehachapi, Calif.