The amateur sleuth has always captured the imagination of the mystery buff

PROSPECT, Conn. - Sept. 21, 2015 - PRLog -- Such a situation befell a gentleman named Hamilton Smith. Raised in New England during the mid twentieth century, educated at Harvard and subsequently entering the world of business with a prestigious but hidebound consulting firm, Smith graduated into private practice as a one-man-band business consultant and happily encountered financial success over the years.

Late in his career, while serving as the principal advisor for a highly contentious, major eastern railroad merger, Smith was faced with the obvious homicide of a top executive. Hamilton Smith possessed years of experience in reading a wide range of human eccentricities, weaknesses and overblown egos. This knowledge was to prove invaluable in pinpointing the perpetrator of the felony in question.

Then, facing the quiet life of semi-retirement, he relocated to an upscale leisure community in western Colorado but, no sooner than he settled in, was confronted with yet another bloody puzzle. At this point our dapper, bon vivant hero realized that his passion for involvement in mysteries of capital crime was real and his unsolicited contributions invaluable!

In his latest cases, Smith finds himself . . .

J R Canfield was born and raised in northern New Jersey and graduated from the Bloomfield, N.J. High School. His interest in fiction writing was awakened when he won a nationwide short story contest for ninth graders. (Actually he came in second but the original winner was disqualified.) After graduating from NYU, Canfield spent his working career in railroad operations serving as Trainmaster for his beloved DL&W R.R. (RIP Oct. 17, 1960), Superintendent, General Superintendent and Director of Operations for several rail carriers. Since retirement, Canfield has authored seven books of rail photography for Morning Sun Books, Inc.  He also has written The Bobcat Mountain Murders, his second mystery fiction effort featuring amateur detective Hamilton Smith.

The Boardman Ridgeley Mysteries and Return To Bobcat Mountain is available on Amazon, BN.com, and wherever books are sold. ISBN: 978099135197, $12.95.