LOVE AND DEATH IN THE SUNSHINE STATE: The Story of a Crime by 1st time author Cutter Wood is, like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, a searing blend of the documentary and the literary. As Wood embeds himself in the investigation of the mysterious murder, he comes to explore not only the circumstances leading up to a woman’s death, but the very heart of darkness that can lead love down a nameless path.



The crime at the center of the story is the murder of Sabine Musil-Buehler, the owner of a local motel on Anna Maria Island off Florida’s gulf coast. Author Cutter Wood, freshly graduated from college and at loose ends, had been a guest at the motel just a few months before it was set on fire and Sabine went missing. When Sabine’s blood-covered stolen car is recovered by the police, they begin digging up the beach. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her absent boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Wood returns to Anna Maria and is drawn steadily deeper into the case. As his personal investigation advances—an investigation that soon goes well beyond mere facts—he finds himself driven to understand the intimate details of a relationship and how they could lead to murder.