Former Toledo Author Larry Rochelle’s Murder On 15/501 sets his latest Palmer Morel thriller in the bucolic, rolling hills near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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Larry Rochelle burnthotcoffee.yahoo.com
Former Toledo Author Larry Rochelle’s Murder On 15/501 sets his latest Palmer Morel thriller in the bucolic, rolling hills near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Here the winding highway 15/501 provides entrance into the villages of Fearrington and Deerington, two communities with opposing viewpoints on life. Fearrington is a quiet, up-scale older community of forests, deer and croquet. Deerington presents a huge contrast with up-scale condos built with Route 66 motels in mind: each “motel” has garish colors, neon lights and loud music during the daylight hours. And, at night, Deerington becomes one party animal with dancing, romancing and a Las Vegas spirit.
Out of these contrasts evolves an intricate murder scheme to bring Deerington Village down. And in its place, the Old Testament God will rule and Chapel Hill folks will learn to Love America Again.
Excerpt
MURDER ON 15/501
1
Nothing seemed wrong. Nothing out of place. But Palmer Morel, the big blond tennis pro, feeling his forty-one years today, his groin still hurting from a recent clay court injury, moved gingerly, cautiously, and pushed against the slightly-open, wooden door to Sara Jensen’s pottery shop, “The Empty Gator.”
The red door was stuck. Morel pushed again, getting his 220 pound, six foot two frame a bit lower to the warped gray floor. He grunted, shoving hard now, the door frame groaning, but not moving.
Nothing.
“Anybody here?” he shouted again into the darkness.
Retreating down the gravel driveway, his shoes crunching loudly, he opened the hatchback to his little Scion XB, rummaging through his foot locker, picking up a flashlight.
He slammed the hatch down. He checked the light. The batteries were low with just enough yellow light to see inside the cabin.
A faded-white curtain blocked the dirty window panes looking out on the front porch and the meager door opening offered no view inside at all.
Off the porch now, Morel followed a path around back, a dog somewhere in the woods starting to bark.
What was he doing? It was after eleven, his girl, Cat Gallaher, was waiting for him back at the condo, and he’d left his cell phone at the tennis club.
Why not just call Jensen tomorrow morning? He’d still have time to pick up the pottery present in time for Cat’s birthday party tomorrow night.
But when he flashed the light on the old backdoor, he saw it was off its hinges, angling backwards into the small kitchen.
And only then he felt, rather than observed, the hot fire from Jensen’s kiln out near the line of pine trees some hundred feet away.
She must be working late, Morel figured, ignoring the broken door for a moment and walking slowly down the path toward the kiln.
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“Chatham author completes 21st book”
The Chatham Record
June 18, 2009
by Bill Wilcox
Chatham author Larry Rochelle has just completed his 21st book, a thriller titled “Murder on 15/501,” that is set in the bucolic, rolling hills north of Pittsboro.
The fictional setting for his book is Highway 15/501, which, provides entrances into the villages of Fearrington and Deerington, two communities with opposing viewpoints on life.
Fearrington is a quiet, up-scale older community of forests, deer and croquet, but Deerington presents a huge contrast with condos built in the style of Route 66 motels with garish colors, neon lights and loud music during the daylight hours.
And, at night, Deerington becomes one big party scene with dancing, romancing and a Las Vegas spirit.
“Out of these contrasts evolves an intricate murder scheme to bring Deerington Village down,” Rochelle said. “And in its place, the Old Testament God will rule, and Chapel Hill folks will learn to love America again.”
Rochelle has had a prolific writing career and a successful one. He has won many awards for his writing, including the 2009 EPPIE National Award for his collection of poetry “Burnt Coffee.”
And he has written all of his books using just one finger.
“Yep, I’m a one-finger typist,” he said. “I started that way in high school. We had a very old Underwood typewriter and there was no way I could type normally on it. The keys took too much power to push down.”
With each book averaging 50,000 words, that’s at least 250,000 keystrokes per book.
“It takes a long time,” he said. “Until this book, I tried to get 2000 words a week, or as many as 5000, so that after nine months I have a book almost ready.”
But the latest book “Murder on 15-501” took much longer because of the real-life killing that happened down the road.
“I couldn’t type much at all,” he said. I could only type a couple of sentences. I couldn’t get into it. It just really inhibited me. I write murder for fun. Here was a real murder, a tragedy.”
He said the murder of UNC Student Body President Eve Carson also hindered his ability to write.
But now the novel is finished. He will have a reading at McIntyre’s next year. In the meantime the book can be ordered from www.lulu.com and AMAZON.com.
Rochelle’s career as an author follows decades of work as an educator.
He taught junior high and high school for 15 years in Ohio. In 1978 he earned his masters’ degree and took a job in Overland Park, Kansas, as a writing center director at Johnson County Community College. After two years he went back into the classroom and spent 28 years teaching English Composition, Film and Science Fiction.
After moving to Fearrington Village he taught Study Skills for two years at Central Caro-lina Community College before retiring this spring.
He was a member of the writers group at Fearrington for awhile, especially with the poetry group but hasn’t written a poem in a year, which he says is another aftereffect of the murder.
But his writers’ block is lifting and he has high hopes for the success of his new book, which will be entered in the 2010 EPPIES in July.
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