(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring Bexley resident Frederick Cullen's mystery novel "Secrets are Anonymous", set in Bexley, appeared in This Week in Bexley on September 26, 2002.)

Resident’s novel set in community

By Ina Horwitz-Whitmore
This Week staff writer

Left: Bexley resident Frederick Cullen retired early from his position with Bank One to pursue a longtime dream of writing a publishing a book. His mystery novel, "Secrets Are Anonymous," is set in Bexley. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Some residents will recognize locales and bits of information about Bexley in the plot of author Frederick L. Cullen’s comic mystery novel, "Secrets Are Anonymous."

Cullen, a Bexley resident for nine years, is quick to point out in the book’s first pages: "This is a work of fiction. While some of the business establishments and locales do exist, names, characters and incidents are the unfortunate product of the author’ s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."

He told ThisWeek that the characters are not specific individuals but composites of lots of people and characteristics.

In 1999, Cullen, now 54, retired as an executive of Bank One. He and wife Cindy have three children: Emily, 25; Rory, 22; and Land, a 2002 Bexley High School graduate and a freshman at DePaul University.

When he was an English major at Denison University in the late 1960s, Cullen said he was inspired by two professors who encouraged his creative-writing interest.

As a university student, Cullen had two of his poems published in the Denison literary magazine. Before graduation, he also decided the market for his poetry was not particularly strong.

Thus, he went on to get a Masters of Business Administration at Indiana. For 27 years, he authored speeches, e-mails, memorandums, personnel evaluations, complaint letter replies and vision statements before he could think of returning to his love of creative writing.

Cullen said that he has gone from the business of banking, where he managed 15,000 people and large balance sheets, to being an individual performer.

"After running a portion of Bank One, I wanted to work for myself," he said. "I always loved writing and reading. These are two very different careers."

Cullen began working on his first book in February 2000 from an office in his home. He wrote from about 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily. When the novel was finished a year later, it took months to find a publisher.

He connected with Durban House Publishing Company in Dallas. The firm specializes on finding first-time authors who may have been shunned by bigger publishers.

Calling the publishing business "very difficult," Cullen said that first-time writers can get frustrated, and they need to be consistent and persistent.

Cullen decided to stick to the concept of writing about something you know. He figured it was either the banking business or Bexley. Bexley came first, and the banking business may be the setting of his next novel.

His first premise for the book: Bexley is a quiet community where nothing happens.

Cullen transforms "quiet" Bexley into a chaotic scene for a 30-day period in the spring.

The principal character is Marty Shepherd, a BHS graduate, whose promising New York journalism career is stalled when her father shows up for her college graduation with his boyfriend on the way to a new life in California.

Shepherd returns home to Bexley to care for her wheelchair-bound mother and becomes a reporter for the Bexley Chronicle, circulation 7,000. The paper’s offices are on Bexley’s Main Street, and lots of dialogue takes place in its eating establishments -- Bexley’s Monk, Rubino’s, Cup 0 ‘Joe, Starbucks and Graeter’ s Ice Cream.

Many of the characters, some noted residents in the quiet community, possess secrets and hidden ambitions. Their secrets are revealed through a variety of communications, including private Internet chat rooms, messaging and e-mails, vanity license plates, newspaper articles and letters to the editor, answering machines, hypnosis, burglary, video tapes, eavesdropping and cocktail napkins from The Monk.

A drug cartel selects Bexley as a test market for new designer drug, burundanga. Chaos follows from actions by the National Security Agency, FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cullen said he started his novel by visualizing people he knew.

"As the book developed, the characters took over and started to do outrageous things and create crazy circumstances for themselves," he said. Portions of the book’s satire will likely have residents relating to what makes news in quiet Bexley.

Cullen said that if the book has some degree of commercial success, he may do a sequel. Secrets Are Anonymous sells for $15.95 and is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble Bookstores in Columbus.

Cullen will be at the Easton Barnes & Noble on Nov. 5 for a book-signing and at The Columbus School for Girls Jubilee! during the second weekend in October.

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