Reviews
Publisher's Weekly: 
"In his first mystery novel, Sheldon presents an 'impossible crime' worthy in its 'impossibility' of John Dickson Carr himself. On the seventh hole of the Carmel Bay Country Club, during his usual Wednesday morning foursome, lawyer Alex Wagner hits his ball into a low bunker. He appears to loft it nicely out onto the green where it ends up in the cup. To the surprise of his three golf buddies, Wagner doesn't climb out of the sand trap to gloat over his miraculous shot. When they finally look in the bunker, the man is gone. Later his body turns up in the bay miles away.
A potential witness to this vanishing act is artist Herman de Portola Bliss, a notorious public nuisance, who was painting near the seventh hole at the time. Taking charge of the investigation, Dan Shepard, the easygoing new chief of the
While some people want Wagner's murderer found, others don't. Since Shepard is new to the area, everyone keeps a dubious eye on the chief's performance, and Bliss doesn't make his job easier.
A witty and graceful style, an unusual cast of characters and a mystery that baffles up to the last page bode well for future puzzlers from Sheldon. If this isn't the start of a series, it should be.
FYI: The author is also a TV producer (Charlie's Angels; Star Trek: The Next Generation) and a computer-game designer (Wild, Wild West: The Steel Assassin; The Riddle of Master Lu). He has twice been nominated for Edgar Awards."
Monterey Herald:"Alex Wagner's golfing buddies at the Carmel Bay Country Club weren't surprised when the local businessman placed his ball in one of the seaside course's treacherous sand traps. But they were astonished, though, when he holed out his chip shot and then vanished from the bunker. Not only does the duffer disappear into thin air but he later turns up on the other side of the Monterey Peninsula, very dead and floating in the bay.
This opening scene of "Impossible Bliss" (Mystery and Suspense Press. $15.95) by Lee Sheldon sets the tone for one of the best "golfing mysteries" written to date about the Central Coast's premier sport. In a case with more twists than Pebble Beach's "17 Mile Drive," Carmel's brand new police chief, Dan Shepard, has to deal with some of the eccentricities that make the area so endearing and frustrating.
Self-serving politicians, environmental protesters, "significant" seagull droppings and a shady land deal are jus! t some of the problems that Shepard encounters as he tries to solve a murder while a major pro-am golf tournament is taking place. In fact, at one point weekend traffic control appears to be more important to the local village city council than apprehending the murderer!
How a man can walk into a bunker and then be found dead miles away is a thorny problem made even harder to unravel when a local artist, Herman de Portola Bliss, decides to assist in the case.
Known and disliked by almost everyone in the village, Bliss shows very little talent with a brush but his unerring eye for clues makes him an irritating, albeit exceedingly useful, assistant as Shepard conducts his investigation.
"Impossible Bliss" is a delightful "who-dun-it" local readers should relish. Sheldon has managed to capture some of the Monterey Peninsula's more outrageous and endearing personality types and squeezed a little humor from their zany and familiar antics. At the same time he has created an intriguing story line that is rich in local color. From a car chase in the Carmel Valley to a protest at an unfinished hotel site on Cannery Row and the interior of CHOMP, it is quite obvious that Sheldon , a former Carmel resident, knows his way around the area!"
West Nyack Library:"Impossible Bliss by Lee Sheldon. Carmel, California police chief Dan Shepherd investigates a seemingly impossible crime after attorney Alex Wagner hits his golf ball into a low bunker and to the astonishment of his golfing buddies fails to re-emerge from the sand trap. His body is later discovered floating in the bay miles away. One of the witnesses is Herman de Portola Bliss, an eccentric resident of Carmel who takes it upon himself to help the new police chief solve the crime. A good read, nicely written and baffling up to the end."
Skokie, Illinois Library:
"The title, Impossible Bliss, is a "play" on the name of the character, Herman de Portola Bliss, an eccentric artist (of no repute!) who ends up helping the new chief of police in