"The best mystery I've read, bar none," says a top Amazon.com reviewer about Texas author L.B. Cobb's debut novel, SPLENDOR BAY. Other reviews are just as good. First released in tradepaper in December 2001, a library hardcover edition came out in July 2002.

Bill Glasscock, a.k.a. Fragile Dick, a suspended-for-malpractice attorney, wakes from his girlfriend Sally Solana's bed to a crystalline May morning in Splendor Bay. Before noon, Bill faces the challenge of his life. The stiff the local cops have just found on the beach below Sally's bayview mansion is Bill's soon-to-be-ex-wife Eleana's lover, Governor Wallace Moreno. Sally, the states attorney general, is missing. So is Eleana, head of the state archives. And, believe it or not, in addition to a complicated love life, Bill is the prime suspect of a host of cops -- local, state, and federal. That's exactly the catalyst Bill needs to abandon his self-imposed sabbatical from life for a quest to save those he loves from a murderer.

Suspense, complicated relationships, quirky characters you will love and remember, crisp dialogue, wry humor, and a feel-good ending are a few of the reasons Splendor Bay grabs you by the heart and sweeps you along on waves of emotion to its surprising conclusion.