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Ralph's 40th book, Sands Green - Mountain Man, was his first novel. After completing that book he desired to return to the "Quick Read Fiction" style of writing, but also wanted to write his first modern mystery book. This brought about Unsolved Investigations.
Ralph wanted this book to be about solving cases that were now "Cold Cases".
In planning the first subplot of the book, Ralph realized that he would need to come up with a lot of character names. Therefore, he decided to reuse the names of characters he had created for his nine-book Johnny Ringo - Bounty Hunter series.
The two main characters were to be two persons who take criminal investigation seriously, but at first appeared to be unlikely partners. That is when Ralph came up with having one of them to be a college professor and the second one to start out as a senior in that college.
The original idea for the first subplot was because a chess friend had graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Criminal Justice and that sparked the idea of how the book could begin and the setting. However, his friend had no senior project as described within the book.
Ralph wanted each case to show that anyone who paid close enough attention to details and shared information, could solve a case. However, he also wanted notice given as to how overworked law enforcement agencies are, which might be the reason some cases fall through the cracks.
Each case is a short story; however, the same main characters are involved in each story.
"The Founding of Unsolved Investigations": A university professor, Phillip Whitfield, with an excellent background in criminal investigation, is the senior advisor for Matthew Ringo IV. Matthew's senior project is to find a cold case in Missouri and then find similar cold cases in two other states and point out the similarities. During his search he discovers nine unsolved related murders. With Professor Whitfield guidance, Matt's research leads to the identity of the killer and the motive.
"Case 1: The Deceased Client": In this case they are to prove that someone other than the man who was sentenced to prison and committed suicide in prison, actually committed four murders in order to protect the family's good name.
"Case 2: The Vanishing Bank Robbers": Ralph stole the idea for this case from one of the subplots in one of his Johnny Ringo - Bounty Hunter books. Bank robbers have had seven successful bank robberies over 2 1/2 years and they completely vanish after leaving the back door of the bank.
"Case 3: The No-Name Client": This case is not the type of case that the men were planning on taking on. However, it is hard to say no to a desparate woman is standing right in front of you. A woman has had amnesia for eight months and wants help to discover her true identity.
Total Words = 58,002
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