Richard Dorrance lives next door to Gwenny and Roger June in America’s most beautiful town, Charleston, South Carolina.  Four days after moving into his house on Church Street, Richard heard gunfire on the other side of the 200 year old brick wall that separates his historic property from the June’s.  Being of stout heart, he stood on a chair and looked over the wall, where he saw Gwenny sitting on a wooden milk crate, holding a gun and looking at the wall along the back line of her property, where Richard could see small craters in the wall and brick chips on the ground underneath.  The appearance of his head above the wall caught Gwen’s eye, and she looked at him with a dazzling smile.

She said, “Hey.  Sorry about the noise, but I just had to sight this new baby in.  Looks like it pulls a hair to the left.”  She got up, went over to the wall, and offered him a handshake.

Richard never had had the inclination to kiss a woman’s hand, old-fashioned style, but he did now.  He would discover that Gwen made a lot of men feel and think things they never had before.  He controlled himself, shook her hand regular style, and asked, “Don’t the police mind you firing a gun in the back yard?”

She said, “They do, or used to, but after they come to check it out they seem to leave satisfied.  I really don’t do it very often.  We like a quiet neighborhood.”

That was a few years ago, and since then Richard and the Junes have become good friends.  So good, in fact, that Richard started writing books about them and the capers they get involved in.  You can read excerpts from these books here on Richard’s website.

Before meeting the Junes and being stimulated to record their multifarious lives in a series of comedy cum caper novels, Richard worked for many years as an historical preservationist for the National Park Service.  Now he finds living vicariously through his neighbor’s exploits to be much more interesting.  He also really likes the June’s dog, who communicates with him telepathically.  Occasionally, as Richard works on a book, the Junes try to hide something from him about one of their capers, but the dog always squeals and tells the whole story.