First-time author and retired teacher Anna Ruth Worten-Fritz of St. Cloud has written a “who dunit?” for the young adults genre, titled “He Deserved to Die.”
The book utilizes many features of the St. Cloud area in a fictional “Lake Harmony Preserve” neighborhood location. The Saint Cloud Police Department also gets in on the act, including two fictional detectives from the force who are challenged to find the killer.
Worten-Fritz was a K-12 teacher in Florida public schools, teaching history, geography, and reading. Her last teaching position was at Harmony High School. This is her first book, and it was written during the quiet hush of the early COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was written during that time, but it was really eight years in the making,” Worten-Fritz said.
The story opens with the demise of a widelydisliked, racist neighbor at a neighborhood event to welcome a new couple of color that just moved in. It becomes a case of everyone being a suspect, with sufficient motive and opportunity to off the odious “Mr. Happy”.
The story has a light touch with welldeveloped characters that are intertwined into some complex social issues of our day. The book thus far has received 39 reviews on Amazon.com — all of them five stars.
Worten-Fritz is encouraged by the reception the book has received from several area book clubs she was invited to speak to.
“I have been asked if I am going to write another book, and while I am not sure, some ideas that came to mind were either a prequel, to explore how ‘Mr. Happy’ got the way he was at the time of his murder, or a different story carrying on with the detectives from this book,” she said.
“He Deserved to Die” is available at the St. Cloud Veterans Memorial Library in Local Author section, and for download via the library’s Hoopla app, as well as all booksellers.
She resides part-time in St. Cloud and parttime in New Smyrna Beach with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. She has taught English to Chinese students online as well, and is a volunteer with the Adult Literacy League, teaching English to Spanish speakers.
