Marvin Levine
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Lowcountry Author
New release - The Ghosts of Wellington Manor
Now available on Amazon in print, ebook, and Kindle Unlimited
Evil took root in Wellington Manor generations ago. Now, a stranger’s arrival will stir the dead — and expose the living.
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When Denise accepts an invitation to her new boyfriend’s family’s annual pre-Christmas dinner in their South Carolina ancestral plantation home, she has no idea the home’s spectral inhabitants will awaken — and fixate on her. What begins as a holiday gathering soon unravels into chaos as the family’s fractured dynamics come to light.
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The drama follows the family to Brookgreen Gardens’ dazzling holiday light show — and to a murder that transforms dysfunction into full-blown horror. Caught in the aftermath, Denise becomes a key figure in the investigation. But she’s not alone. The ghosts who haunt Wellington Manor have been waiting for this reckoning — and hold the secrets needed to uncover the truth.
Behind the scenes of The Ghosts of Wellington Manor
After finishing The Lost Fleet, I knew I wanted to return to the themes of a murder mystery and a wealthy, powerful but highly dysfunctional family. In 2024 I had the opportunity to do a book club meeting with the folks from the Litchfield Plantation subdivision. I was so enamored with the home and its history, I decided to use a place like that for the setting of the next book. Like the Litchfield Plantation, Wellington Manor is a former rice plantation set on the Waccamaw River, this time just south of Pawleys Island.
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When choosing the family, I wanted to exhibit a good deal of diversity, not so different than many other real-life families – this one maybe a little more so. I embraced the idea of my protagonist, Denise, a young Black law student, as the new girlfriend of the Wellington’s younger son Will. Throw into that mix a powerful corrupt patriarch, a no-nonsense dominant matriarch, a gay lawyer older daughter, a redneck trash older son, and a Yankee son-in-law and you have the making of some real volatility. The fact that Denise is the county sheriff’s daughter (my recurring sheriff Leroy Keating), hidden from the family at first, creates great tension in the family dynamics.
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Since the book is coming out in the fall (as will all my future books) I wanted this one to have a Christmas setting. This then tied into bringing Brookgreen Gardens’ Nights of a Thousand Candles light show into the story. Spectacular in its own right, I tried to keep the details as close to the real event as possible. Readers familiar with the show will identify with many of the descriptions, as well as a few places where I varied. What the show doesn’t have (thankfully) is a murder right in the middle of it. But in the book, somebody is going down.
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One of my favorite scenes in the book is the dinner that devolves into chaos. I got the inspiration for this scene from the Netflix series The Perfect Couple. In that particular dinner scene, secrets and accusations are tossed around like hand grenades. I tried to match the intensity of it in my story.
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And then there are the ghosts. Two former slaves with their own story to (eventually) tell. I started with no ghosts, just a straight murder mystery. Then I added the ghosts to give the novel an added angle. But somehow the ghosts worked their way deeper into the plot. By the time I was halfway through writing, the ghosts deserved to be in the title as well as part of the central plot. It’s my first venture into magical realism since Clairvoyance Rain and I embraced it wholeheartedly. There’s a great legacy of ghosts and haunted houses throughout the Lowcountry. Here’s one more.
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More than anything else, I want my writing to connect with the reader on an emotional level. I want you to feel the joy, the fear, the anxiety, the anger, the astonishment, and the sorrow as they unfold in a suspenseful thrilling plot. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Books
New Release - Culligan's Way
Available now in ebook and print
In the Culligan clan, love and protection are served with a heaping side of treachery.
Desolate and alone after succumbing to severe Covid, Tim Culligan returns to his boyhood home at Culligan’s Way in Pawleys Island, South Carolina and faces the family he abandoned and forever swore off. Waiting for him is his powerful father, Judge Rudy Culligan, his loving but bi-polar mother Ruth, an abusive older brother, and two sisters — one hot-tempered, one rebellious. Although heartened by his warm welcome home, Tim soon finds himself embroiled in controversy, scandal, betrayal, and a murder that strikes at the heart of the Culligan household.
Suddenly, every Culligan is a suspect in the brutal killing which occurs on their property. As the case hurtles towards a culminating trial, all six Culligans face different crises, each of their own making. All cards are off the table as Tim struggles to find his new identity, while keeping pace with his family’s laundry list of lies, deceit, vengeance, and justice — all done Culligan’s way.
Behind the scenes of Culligan’s Way
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In the summer of 2021, my grandniece Emma was involved in a traffic accident in Georgetown, South Carolina, and the young lady who hit her came from a wealthy but dysfunctional well-known family who lived on the beachside island in Pawleys Island. This turned out to be the germ seed for Culligan’s Way — a family saga about a rich, powerful, highly dysfunctional family who live in a mansion both on the beach and the marsh.
At its heart, Culligan’s Way is a murder mystery, but it is also a profile of the six family members, all of whom have contemptable qualities, but also, all, except Randy, have positive contributions as well. The fact that each of them work their way into different crises of their own making highlights these aspects of their personalities.
The setting is paramount to the story. It is an absolutely gorgeous place to live or visit. I often take bike rides down the length of Pawleys Island, exhilarating from the wide view of the marsh looking back to the mainland. At the south end of the island, where Culligan’s Way is located, the marsh narrows some. The cover art is based on a photo taken of one of the piers in this location, the actual Pawleys Creek in the background.
In Culligan’s Way, I continue the writing style I love so much. The chapters are short and crisp. The dialogue is sharp and pulls no punches. There’s plenty of twists and turns, and the plot never slows down. As my first true murder mystery, I thoroughly enjoyed setting up suspects for the reader to guess at whom the killer is. I hope you are not disappointed.
A Trail Of Vengeance (2022)
A Novel
A morbid conversation taints a blissful day at the beach. At the very end of their summer vacation, Beth Littleton’s high-school sweetheart Ben declares he would like to eventually die on his home beach in Pawley's Island, South Carolina. He has no idea he’ll be dead within the hour. Accidents can happen to careless teenagers. So can murder.
Seventeen years after Ben died and Beth’s summer friend Shannon disappeared from her life, Shannon returns with a new name and an old grudge. She’s been missing for five weeks from her Ohio home along with her husband, and Cincinnati Detective Ron Dempsey suspects foul play. When a young woman is found shot to death in the woods, the missing persons case becomes a murder investigation. As the body count rises, Ron is drawn to the South Carolina coast in a frantic chase to track down Shannon before any more harm unfolds.
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But it might be too late for Beth, who is quickly learning the secrets Shannon has held against her over the years. For Shannon, her only focus is revenge — to right the wrong that started everything bad in her life. And the only revenge that can satisfy her insatiable hatred is death.
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Set against the beautiful backdrop of the Low Country’s coastal charm, A Trail of Vengeance is no stroll on the beach. Beware of hazards found on the shore and a vicious brunette who will stop at nothing to fulfill her need for vengeance.
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Clairvoyance Rain (2019)
A Novel
Eight-year-old Boon Mee McNulty fears he’s a freak. He warned his friend whose dad he knew would be shot - then, when it happens, Boon’s fears are confirmed. Now the storms heading his way foretell an uneasiness he knows all too well. He may have another one of those dreams, the ones with “the Guide,” who shows him scenes of tragic events that will soon occur
in real life. Tonight’s dream will shake Boon to the core, and the world over shortly after.
Set against the backdrop of some of the greatest disasters of the 21st century, Boon’s dreams reveal dark secrets and phenomenal truths. As he grows from childhood to adolescence, and then into adulthood, Boon discovers how to harness his knowledge on some occasions to help those in
need. Other times, he must silently bear the burden of his dreams. Clairvoyance Rain is a story about love and compassion, courage and perseverance, and truth and consequence. It is a tale of
fate; and the destiny which resides, hidden, in us all.
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The Broken Wire (2018)
A Novel
When April Matson takes a long needed break in Pawley's Island South Carolina, after
separating from her abusive husband Kevin, she hopes to regain some semblance of control in her life. Instead, events continue to cascade around her. Unknown to anyone, an undocumented painting by an Impressionist master is concealed behind another painting in her father’s Chicago home. The painting has made its way from unseemly beginnings in a chaotic 1871 Paris, through to Nazi Germany. In 1945, it finds its way to America, where 72 years later, an accidental discovery reveals the undocumented masterpiece to April. With the help of the Art Institute of Chicago, they complete the authentication process and estimate its value to be over $100 Million dollars. As April tries to balance her newfound fame and her new romantic interest, she is left with two momentous decisions which will determine the course of the rest of her life.
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