Patricia Stoltey

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Court Trouble—Not the Legal Kind … by Mike Befeler

July 14, 2016 By: Patricia

For the last twenty years, I’ve played a sport called platform tennis. As an ex-tennis player with aging joints, I found this an enjoyable sport on a court a third the size of a tennis court. Writers consider everything material for a novel, so I had to set a mystery on a platform tennis court. The result is Court Trouble—A Platform Tennis Mystery.

Here is a little background on the sport of platform tennis. The court is a raised deck covered with rough sandpaper-like material (you don’t want to fall down if you value cloth and skin) and is surrounded by a wire mesh fence. Rules are similar to tennis, but you only get one serve and you can play the ball off the fence after it has bounced in the court (you can’t hit a ball into the fence first). It began on the East Coast where a group of tennis players wanted a similar outdoor sport during the winter. Snow can be shoveled off the raised court through raised louvers on the sides. Although most people play it during the winter, my group continues all year. Equipment includes a paddle with holes to reduce air resistance and a solid, squishy ball. It’s primarily a doubles game with lots of finesse and strategy, aspects I enjoy. You get a continuous workout because the contained court allows the ball to be retrieved quickly at the end of a point. Scoring is similar to tennis.

2016_Befeler_CourtTroubleFrontCourt Trouble is set in Boulder, Colorado, in 2002. The protagonist, Mark Yeager, is a retired entrepreneur and prostate cancer survivor who becomes an amateur sleuth when one of his buddies is killed on a platform tennis court. In addition to trying to find the murderer, Mark must battle to keep the platform tennis courts at the recreation center (this is based on an actual event when, through a planning error, the courts were to be eliminated when the recreation center expanded). Mark has to prevent getting crosswise with the police, as well as ending up another victim of the murderer.

Following published geezer-lit, paranormal, theater and historical mysteries, this is my first sports mystery. I had a good time writing it and sharing my love for a sport I have enthusiastically played. And what the heck, we mystery writers have to find unique ways to kill off people.

My wife and I moved from Boulder to Southern California last year to be near our new grandson who turned one this month. The one problem: there are no platform tennis courts here, so I have taken up pickleball instead. This is the fastest growing sport in the country and also easier on the body than tennis. Pickleball has its own set of unique rules, which I won’t try to explain here. If you haven’t played it, you should give it a try. So you guessed it. In the future I will include pickleball in a mystery novel. Stay tuned.

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Mike Befeler’s geezer-lit mysteries include Nursing Homes Are Murder, Care Homes Are Murder; Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder, a finalist for The Lefty Award for best humorous mystery of 2012; Senior Moments Are Murder; Living with Your Kids Is Murder; and Retirement Homes Are Murder. His other published mysteries are Court Trouble, The V V Agency, The Back Wing, Mystery of the Dinner Playhouse and Murder on the Switzerland Trail. He grew up in Hawaii and lives in Lakewood, CA, with his wife.

Learn more about Mike and his books at his website. He can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

More from my site

  • Hidden In The Hills … by Jodi BurnettHidden In The Hills … by Jodi Burnett
  • The Art of #notwritingThe Art of #notwriting
  • Patience, My Writer … by Natasha WingPatience, My Writer … by Natasha Wing
  • MONEY, MONEY, MONEY . . .  by Marilyn ClayMONEY, MONEY, MONEY . . . by Marilyn Clay
  • The Making of a Mystery Author by Paty JagerThe Making of a Mystery Author by Paty Jager
  • HEROES: Standing the Test of Time … by Joylene Nowell ButlerHEROES: Standing the Test of Time … by Joylene Nowell Butler

Category: Books and Authors, Guest Blogger Tag: Court Trouble, Geezer Lit Mysteries, guest blogger, Mike Befeler, pickleball, platform tennis

Comments

  1. Margot Kinberg says

    July 14, 2016 at 11:10 am

    I’ve heard of platform tennis, but never known anything about it before. This is fascinating, so thanks, both. I always like the idea of writing about something one finds interesting.

    • Mike befeler says

      July 15, 2016 at 10:47 am

      Thanks, Margot. I enjoyed mixing a sport I love with a mystery.

  2. Mason Canyon says

    July 14, 2016 at 10:34 am

    Mike, I hate to admit that I’m not familiar with platform tennis nor pickleball, but they sound interesting. I can’t help but laugh that you write geezer-lit mysteries. Glad to know as I age, the sleuths are aging too. 🙂 Wishing you much success.

    Hi, Pat. Thanks for the introduction to Mike and his work.

    Thoughts in Progress
    and MC Book Tours

    • Mike befeler says

      July 15, 2016 at 10:50 am

      Mason, if you have played tennis, racquetball, squash or badminton you would pick them up quickly. Great sports. It’s fun to present older characters with a few laughs as well

  3. Alex J. Cavanaugh says

    July 14, 2016 at 5:39 am

    They say write what you know and you used that to your advantage.
    Hope pickleball doesn’t involve real pickles. That would be messy.

    • Mike befeler says

      July 15, 2016 at 10:51 am

      Named after a dog called Pickles. Uses a wiffle ball

Meet Patricia

I read, I write, I blog, and sometimes I do the laundry and cook. My 2014 novel, Dead Wrong, was a finalist in the thriller category of the 2015 Colorado Book Awards. Wishing Caswell Dead (Five Star/Cengage, December 20, 2017) is a historical mystery set in 1830s Illinois in the fictitious Village of Sangamon. The novel was a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards for General Fiction. Read More…

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