Boca Daze by Steve Forman

By Andy Straka

After a long and successful career in business, Steve Forman turned to writing private eye novels. BOCA DAZE is his amusing third mystery featuring retired Boston cop Eddie Perlmutter (after 2010’s BOCA MOURNINGS).

BOCA DAZE finds the 61-year-old bantam weight PI, dubbed “the Boca Knight,” tackling the local “pill mills,” which inappropriately supply people with powerful narcotics. Eddie also looks into the beating of a homeless man called Weary Willie as well as a financial fraud case involving an investment company head, B.I. Grover, who Eddie’s business partner, Lou Dewey, a reformed computer fraudster, suspects is running a Ponzi scheme. When a confrontation with gun-toting hoods leaves innocents dead, Eddie gets some unexpected help from gang leader Mad Dog Walken and a spunky homeless woman known as Three Bag Bailey.

Readers will certainly want to spend more time with Eddie Perlmutter, who’s as adept with his wits as with his fists. His creator has graciously agreed to answer a few questions for our readers.

BOCA DAZE is your third Eddie Perlmutter novel. What inspired you to write private eye novels?

Eddie Perlmutter had to be a detective to do all the adventures I had planned for him when he retired to Boca Raton at age fifty nine. He hates crime, he hates inequity and he hates bullies. He was Boston’s toughest cop, eventually becoming the best detective on the force. He was retired for one day when he uncovered a Russian Mafia drug and counterfeit ring in Boca, a hate group and some of the least likely crime fighters imaginable.

What makes BOCA DAZE different from the first two novels in the series?

Each book has its own cast of characters, crimes and themes. The theme of BOCA KNIGHTS is “It’s never too late to be a hero.” BOCA MOURNINGS is about how “It’s never too late to change,” and BOCA DAZE stresses that “It’s never too late to get involved.” The new characters in BOCA DAZE include a Bernie Madoff type only worse,  homeless people in Boca including a hobo who thinks he’s Weary Willie, the sad face clown from the great depression,  Three Bag Bailey, a homeless woman who can fit all her possessions in three bags, Mad Dog Walken, a black gang leader from Miami’s Liberty City and a larcenous, lecherous Catholic priest with a girl friend.  There’s more and it’s all new material.

You’ve had a long and successful business career. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I always knew I could be a writer but didn’t start until I was sixty five. My business career was a great adventure, taking me around the world. I have no regrets regarding the choices I made except my second career is going to be a lot shorter than my first one unless I live to a hundred and five.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, Nelson Demille, Pat Conroy and Doug Preston come to mind immediately but there are so many more great authors.

Eddie is a great character. Is he based on a real person? Any cops in your past?

Eddie is based on a lot of people I met in my life with all their frailties and strengths on display. There’s a little of me in him too. He’s a super hero with human flaws. I love the guy. There are no cops in my past but if there was one I’d want him to be just like Eddie

*****

Steven M. Forman was born in Boston in 1942, graduated the University of Massachusetts in 1963, married in 1968 and started a food marketing company in 1970. He always had a passion for writing but spent the next forty years building a world-wide importing and exporting business. His first novel, BOCA KNIGHTS, was published in 2009 and received excellent reviews. BOCA KNIGHTS was followed by two sequels, BOCA MOURNINGS and BOCA DAZE and an e-book novella entitled, EDDIE THE KID. All of his books are available wherever fine books are sold and as e-books on the internet. He and his wife Barbara divide their time between their two favorite cities, Boston and Boca Raton. His daughter Jana, his granddaughter Taylor and grandson Bradley live in Boca Raton as do his son David, his wife Stacie their son Tyler, and twins Shaina and Raquel.

To learn more about Steven, please visit his website.