David Beckwith

latest review on A Cruising Conspiracy
“A Cruising Conspiracy”
Takes You to New Places
With a Pair of Old Friends

The Citizen’s Film critic Shirrel Rhoades stands in today for regular book
columnist David Beckwith to review the latest novel by him.

The Will and Betsy Black adventure series has just released its 9th book.
They are as addictive as potato chips.
An insider doesn’t have to look too closely to recognize Will and Betsy as
doppelgangers for David and Nancy Beckwith, the husband-and-wife team who
started writing the series back in 2010. When Nancy passed away, David continued
the series in their name.
Like the Blacks, the Beckwiths had a career in financial services, hailed
from Mississippi, lived in Vero Beach for a while, then resettled in the Florida
Keys. I’m not sure how many crimes the Beckwiths ever solved, but Will and
Betsy seem to be pretty good at it.
Their mysteries deal with familiar places and roman au clef crimes. While
the stories are set mostly in the Keys, readers have enjoyed their forays to Jamaica
on occasions.
You will note that the books’ titles are linked by similar verbiage – “A
Hurricane Conspiracy,” “A Calculated Conspiracy,” “A Ransom Conspiracy,” and
such – mainly mysteries with “ripped from the headlines” crimes being solved by
the pair of amateur sleuths.

It is impossible to not compare them to Nick and Nora Charles or Mr. and
Mrs. North or Hart to Hart. But they have their own nuances, as unique as any
marriage does.
In this new book – aptly titled “A Cruising Conspiracy” – the expectation
would be for more of the same, a comfortable formula that readers have come to
enjoy. And you do get that, but this time around you may detect a bit more humor,
a relaxed look at criminality aboard a cruise ship.
The story unwinds slowly, starting off like a travelogue about sea cruises.
You see, Will and Betsy are onboard the Regency Crown for a 40 th high school
reunion, an event that attracts many old friends – their long-time pals Dick and
Beth Peterson; cash-strapped Willard McFarley and his social-climbing wife
Zelma, grieving Danny Pearce, drunken lawyer Billy Cobb and his limping wife
Suzzie, cut-up Paul Walcox and his drug-dealing girlfriend. shady lawyer Jimbo
Littleton and his shopaholic wife Amanda, horny Dickie-Do Dunne and his jerk of
a friend Jerry Quackenbush, along with a gaggle of class gossips, a fading rock
star, and a famous author, plus an obsequious Colombian drug czar named Adolfo
Soltero.
What could go wrong with a powder-keg mixture of passengers like that?
As reader, you will accompany Will and Betsy as they meet classmates in
the ship’s Crooner Lounge or they stroll past the Lido Pool or sample the buffet in
Horizon Court.
You will join them as they tour the Colombian port of Cartagena with
Adolfo, visiting the infamous the Mercado de Bazurto, the house of royal officers,
the Cabildo, the cathedral, and the Inquisition Palace before ending up at the Plaza
Mayor and the Plaza del Mar.
And you will watch them start to unravel a shipboard mystery when they
encounter what they call “The Soltero Syndrome.”

Then you will join them as the ship passes through the narrow locks of the
Panama Canal. During this passage, two of Will’s old classmates come down with
food poisoning, Rusty, the writer, steps on a razor blade, and another acquaintance
takes a bruising tumble down the stairs. Not everyone thinks these were accidents.
And there’s more. Somebody dies.
Who’s behind all this mayhem and murder?
Will and Betsy are left with figuring it out.
But you know they will.
This appraisal started off comparing Will and Betsy to Nick and Nora
Charles, the fictional Thin Man and his sassy wife. According to blogger Kate
Gardner, “The best thing about Nick and Nora is that they’re best friends ... They
are equals; Nick might be the snappy wise guy with experience, but Nora is no
shrinking violet or damsel in distress. She holds her own, snarking back and
helping Nick solve the crimes.”
Those same words apply to Will and Betsy.
Another blogger says of Nick and Nora: “One of the most appealing aspects
of the Charles duo is their deep affection for each other.”
Ditto Will and Betsy.
That’s why I keep following their adventures, book after book.

# # #

A Cruising Conspiracy

David and Nancy Beckwith

Absolutely AmazingEBooks softbound edition



Transcribed from the Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, Mississippi August 6, 2022

Jasmine Steverson, reporter



GREENVILLE NATIVE BECKWITH AUTHORS BOOKS INSPIRED BY HOMETOWN



Longtime financial executive turned author, David Beckwith, has Greenville roots that reach as deep as a winter rye’s and an imagination that travels as far as the east is from the west.

Simply put, the Greenville High School class of 1965 alumni was seemingly destined to produce two works with completely different purposes — “A New Day In The Delta: Inventing School Desegregation As You Go” and a fictional crime conspiracy with the latest book entitled “A Cruising Conspiracy.”

The former was written to educate and the latter, to entertain.

Right off the bat, “A Cruising Conspiracy,” book number nine of the series, aims to entertain its readers with characters eliciting quick wit and exchanging playful quips.

“Does a trip down memory lane unearth fond remembrances, or are some cursed memories best left buried? Join Will and Betsy Black as they explore these issues on a two-week perilous journey that causes the past to meet the present as the present forebodes the future,” the synopsis says.

Wil and Betsy, the protagonists of the series, are the alter egos of Beckwith and his late wife, Nancy.

The story on how they enjoined to write the series is just as intriguing as the series itself.

Both were in financial services for what would be considered a lifetime for some, and they were living in Vero Beach, Florida.

He had been doing promotions for “A New Day In The Delta” all over the South and figured he would propose an idea to Nancy while they were driving down I-95.

“Sweetheart, how’d you like to do something together?” he asked.

“David, this is not exactly the appropriate time or the place while I’m dodging eighty-mile-an-hour traffic in Palm Beach County.”

Nancy could not begin to imagine what Beckwith was referring to as they drove down the jam-packed interstate with traffic for miles.

He then asked, “How’d you like to write a book together?”

Nancy replied, “Yeah, maybe.”

He proceeded to elaborate on the idea of a series about a married couple who likes to solve crimes, and both are financial executives, likening it to the acclaimed comedy-mystery, “The Thin Man,” with tongue-in-cheek dialogue.

Although Nancy was only able to co-write the first book of the series and edit the second due to her cancer diagnosis, Beckwith maintained the adventure of Will and Betsy.

He and Nancy moved to Key West where she would spend the rest of her time until her death in 2014.

Beckwith said of the series, “Most of them take place in Florida or the Caribbean and two of them take place in Jamaica. For the most recent on. I decided I was going to bring it back to Greenville.”

He continued, “It was the Greenville High School class of 1965, and I decided they were going to have their 40th reunion, but instead of going to Greenville like they usually do, we decided to take a Caribbean cruise.”

Beckwith could not take complete credit for the title of the series as John Floyd, a Millsaps College buddy who taught writing suggested working the word “conspiracies” into all the titles.

“I just changed the kind of conspiracy from book to book,” he said.

The inspiration came from his reluctant acceptance of an invitation to join his best friend from the eighth grade, Dick Peterson, and his wife on their 50th anniversary cruise.

He accepted the invitation on one condition — he and the couple would not be joined at the hip.

They booked the cruise six months before departure and Beckwith spent that time writing a mystery story about a cruise ship centered around the GHS class of 1965.

Beckwith alluded to the plot being akin to that of “Murder On The Orient Express.”

“You’ve got a closed environment in the same way, except you’ve got a group that’s caught on the cruise ship and homogonous in the sense they’re having their high school reunion together and unexplainable things and coincidences start happening to the members,” he highlighted. “All the characters have different stories … and you end up with a multileveled mystery.”

Beckwith was asked why he continued to write the “conspiracy” series. He simple answer was “to entertain.”

“I spent 40 years and became a senior VP for one of the largest financial firms in the U.S., had an MBA, had responsibility for more than half a billion dollars, and spent 25 years teaching finance and estate planning for four different colleges. I was also married for 30 years to a lady who had a PhD in finance, was a college provost and graduate school faculty member, and managed half a billion dollars herself,” he said.

Beckwith shared that he is often asked why he doesn’t write about such topics.

One of the reasons is how much time he has already dedicated to that realm.

“When you get to be my age, 75, you get to a point where you are through saving or educating the world. At that point, your objectives turn to escapism, fantasy, and entertainment. I’ll let someone else carry the heavy load,” he said further. “Have you ever noticed that when you see an octogenarian or older and they have a picture with young people, they always look like they want to bite a bullet while the young people are the ones beaming? Something is wrong with that scene. I want to be the one who makes them smile again after they read some of my over-the-top fun scenes in my books.”

Posted on: Apr 08, 2022 at 3:17 PM

Lynn: This is David Beckwith. I've got a new book coming out that I was hoping to use your mama as part of the dedication. What was her first name? Also was Miss Webb's first name Lucille? my email is dwbeckwith@gmail.com

I have sent the final manuscript for the latest Will and Betsy Black adventure to my publisher. The title is “A Treasure Conspiracy” and will take place primarily in Jamaica though it is partially set in New Orleans. It will be released some time this summer.

Happy birthday from the Florida Keys

My best friends in the Keys, Paul and Debbie Clarin are from Corinth. glad to know you're doing well.