A privately owned chain of nursing homes was using a questionable drug to prolong the lives of dementia patients. Mercer reported the book was about Medicare fraud and abuse in nursing homes.

Bruce had a fellow writer, Mercer Mann, who did not know Nelson personally, to read the manuscript to determine if there was anything in it that might have gotten Nelson killed. Meanwhile, Bruce got in touch with Nelson’s sister, Polly McCann, who had a copy of Nelson’s manuscript. A team from the state crime lab was called, but they were able to make little progress with their investigation. When the police arrived, Nick showed them the evidence he had found. Nick inferred that Nelson had been murdered. Nick and the others rolled Nelson’s body over, and Nick determined there were four different head wounds. He found what might have been blood spattered on a wall and pink water on a sink vanity that he believed was the result of someone washing blood off his hands. As they were waiting, Nick, who was an avid reader of crime novels, began poking around Nelson’s condo. After they identified Nelson’s body, the police asked them to stay with the body until someone could come for it. At Nelson’s condo, they were joined by Bob who lived nearby. Bruce was needed to identify Nelson’s body.īruce was accompanied to the scene by the policeman and Nick, who had stayed with Bruce during the storm. It appeared he was hit in the head by flying debris. Bruce learned the worst when a policeman told him that Nelson was dead.

The morning after the storm, the island was badly battered with trees down and electricity out. With state and local police stalling and a good deal of evidence washed away in the storm, Bruce hired a private firm to help him sort out how Nelson’s latest novel, a book about a questionable drug and Medicare fraud in nursing homes, might have contributed to his murder.Įven though the Florida governor issued a mandatory evacuation order in advance of Hurricane Leo’s landfall, Bruce, Nick Sutton, a teen who worked in Bruce’s store, and their writer friends Nelson and Andrew “Bob” Cobb decided to remain on Camino Island. In the crime novel Camino Winds by John Grisham, Bruce Cable, the owner of Bay Books, is unwillingly thrust into investigating a murder for hire after his author friend Nelson Kerr is killed during a hurricane. The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Grisham, John.

Camino island and camino winds