The Sanibel Sunset Detective by Ron Base

I made a hasty exit and have felt like a complete fool ever since. I stood there staring at the audience unable to say anything. “I came up on stage, faced the audience, started to recite my speech, and then blanked. Everyone would be rolling in the aisles with laughter. I was certain, as is Tree, the speech would knock the audience dead. “I had memorized a short poem I was to recite as I received my award for best actor.

“Much the same thing happened to me, I’m ashamed to say,” Base reported. The night of the awards, Tree gets up on stage, faces his audience-and freezes. In the book, Tree, full of misplaced confidence, starts to believe he should have become an actor, that he wasted his time pursuing a career first as a Chicago newspaper reporter and then as a private detective. In fact, there is an Oscar spoof put at the BIG ARTS Center, and earlier this year, Base was persuaded to participate in it. Now in the fourth novel, The Two Sanibel Sunset Detectives, Tree is back and in the sort of trouble with which his creator can certainly identify-in fact many of Tree’s shortcomings are drawn from Base’s own life.įor example, in the new book, Tree participates in the annual spoof of the Academy Awards that takes place at the BIG ARTS Center. Thanks to Tree’s ability to get himself into trouble, the first three books in the series have become local bestsellers. “Everyone thinks Tree is crazy to be a detective on an island where nothing ever happens,” Base explained. When it comes to writing his Sanibel Sunset Detective novels, author Ron Base is willing to make use of just about anything-including his own ineptitude.īase is the author of three novels set on Sanibel Island featuring an unlikely private detective named Tree Callister.

The Sanibel Sunset Detective by Ron Base