The Button and the Blood

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This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

For more than 35 years Mr. Tissot taught school, mostly in high schools and adult education, but he had experience on the elementary level, too. During this time he took a year's leave of absence to teach English at the Universidad de Santander in Bucaramanga, Colombia, in South America.

After retiring from high school teaching, he took a job as instructor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He also served one term on the school board in his town. He taught Spanish and other subjects. He teaches Spanish and English now in private classes.

He has one other published novel, six short plays, short stories, articles and humor pieces as well.

The white walls and rust-red tile roofs of Alegria tell of its Spanish and Mexican heritage. Gentle waves of the Pacific lap at the beaches of Alegria. The San Carlos Mountains cradle the city and provide a spectacular backdrop. "Queen of Spanish California, Alegria has its feet in the Pacific and its head in the hills." Thus extol the advertisements in Westways Magazine. A tourists' city on the California coast, that is Alegria. As it does in other cities, sudden death now and then visits this paradise. In Alegria, most sudden deaths are accidents.

What happened on Anacap Street was no accident.

Mandy and Flo Gunter run an antique store in Alegria. Mandy thinks Flo is a little eccentric. Flo is a little eccentric. Flo often reads detective stories at night and the next day comes to the store dressed and acting like a private eye. Mandy has admitted to hearing her potted plants talk to her. "Forecast the future," is more exact. "If the plants didn't talk, where did the words come from?"

One morning Mandy's plants told her: "Button and blood." That same morning a man was stabbed to death in the store, right in the middle of the Turkestan rug. The button is the key to solving the crime.

THE BUTTON AND THE BLOOD has two themes:

1) The sisters, under Flo's urging, try to discover why the man was killed in the store. If it means disobeying orders from the police, then so be it.

2) Mandy, shaken to the core by the experience, realizes she and her sister are getting older, and death is in their future. Mandy realizes she and Flo are "all they've got" and soon they will have to face the problems of getting old: loss of memory, illness and all the rest. The problem is that Mandy and Flo are so different they don't see each other much outside the store. They live apart. Mandy wants to change their relationship while there is still time.

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