Bill and I met for coffee with mystery author Ted Mulcahey April 11 and enjoyed the visit. We felt an easy camaraderie with him from the start.
Our Bells Beach neighbors had been talking up Ted’s “Whidbey Adventure” mysteries months ago, mentioning his book, published in 2024, “Lone Lake Road,” which delves into witches, warlocks and time travel. His well-told tales describe Whidbey’s familiar places and his fictional characters become enmeshed in suspenseful and sometimes humorous stories framed by our island’s landscape.
Driving Lone Lake Road in South Whidbey on his way to play golf, Ted marveled at the road’s curves and how the temperature drops by 5 degrees in certain places. How these patches retain snow and frost long after other parts of the roadway have melted.
“That’s what generated the idea for the story.,” Ted noted. “In the story lots of accidents happen they couldn’t explain. Turns out deep in the woods there evidently lives a little short warlock. Deputy Roger Wilkie discovers this guy. He’s there because he’s estranged from his family, and descended from witches.”
A spell sends the deputy and his assistant Wally back in time, visiting Coupeville in the 1800s and exploring the relationship between white settlers and the Snohomish people who lived there at the time.
In ‘Author’s Notes’ at the end of the book, Ted writes: “Among the more wicked things the early Americans chose to do to the People who lived here long before they did was to snatch their children from their families and place them in boarding schools. Much of the history of that practice has come to light recently and has reminded us that other cultures, languages, and practices are to be celebrated, not discouraged or, worse, persecuted. It’s the diversity that provides the strength of the country, and unfortunately, it’s taking us too long to realize it. We can do better.”
Ted Mulcahey grew up in an East Coast Irish family, with three brothers and five sisters. Reading was part of his life for as long back as he can remember.
“I grew up reading mysteries—got books for Christmas,” Ted recalled. “We loved getting them. ‘Hardy Boys.’ ‘Tom Swift.’ One Christmas I got the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. Scared the shit out of me.”
His dad was a newspaper editor.
“My dad was the sports editor for a newspaper in Rhode Island,” Ted recalled. “In high school my dad had me cover high school sports. I was sports editor for our high school newspaper.”
Ted served in the army for two years after graduating from the University of Rhode Island in 1969. While he never served in Viet Nam—“90 percent of my officers ended up in Vietnam—“ he was stationed instead in El Paso tasked with the HAWK missile system projects, and occasionally driving to Juarez Mexico to pick up troops having a fun time while on leave.
After the military, he worked in sales and marketing, living with his family in Michigan and Ohio. He lived in Westlake Village, CA for five years before moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1985. He wrote bits and bobs, and put his musings in a drawer. Living in St. George Utah for two years, Ted started writing regularly. It suited him. He quoted Gloria Steinem’s famous words: “Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”
“I write every day,” Ted added. “Once you’re in it, you get emotionally wrapped up in it.”
His first books involved a ‘smartass’ couple—Kevin and Jenne O’Malley, recently retired after selling their interior design company, and find Whidbey life wasn’t as bucolic as they had imagined. Wanting to add more gritty characters, Ted added Roger Wilkie, a former L.A. cop who moves to Whidbey to what he believes will be an easier life. Roger is introduced in “Tanks,” a mystery about a criminal who poisons the island’s water tanks.
Since moving to Whidbey five years ago, with his wife Patte, Ted has enjoyed golf, walking with his 12+ year-old German Shepherd Emma—one of the books’ regular characters—and writing eight mysteries, which he’s self published. His latest novel, “Ferry Tails” was published in January. Golf, dogs and ferries are regular themes in his books.
On the Amazon website, “Ferry Tails” is promoted as: “Beneath the tranquil charm of Whidbey Island, a storm of deception and danger brews. When Deputy Sheriff Roger Wilkie stumbles upon a sinister polygamist sect with a violent enforcer, he’s pulled into a relentless game of cat and mouse. The deeper he digs, the more he realizes that beneath the island’s postcard-perfect scenery lurks a deadly undercurrent of corruption, power, and murder. But Wilkie isn’t facing the darkness alone. Armed with his signature dry wit, a rogue’s gallery of eccentric islanders—including an ex-con with a knack for trouble—and two sharp-nosed German Shepherds, he sets out to bring the killers to justice. As the body count rises and the stakes grow higher, Wilkie must outwit an enemy who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.”
Ted says he enjoys Whidbey’s lifestyle and its small town way of life, which gives him endless ideas for new mysteries. “What I tell people—it’s not 6 degrees of separation it’s 1,” he said. “If you don’t know someone, chances are they will know someone you know.”
Ted’s books are available at local book stores, on Amazon, and three of his books are available through Sno-Isle Libraries. Visit his website to learn more about him.