P. B. Perelman

Percy Bysshe "P. B." Perelman is the current Chief of Police for the Sanibel, Florida, Police Department.

Aptly named after 19th-century poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—author of "Ozymandias" and the husband of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley—Perelman is prone to quoting poetry, from Virgil and Jeffers to Dorothy Parker, whose infamous "What fresh hell is this?" is among the chief's favorites. The name was a nightmare, however, for a teenage boy, and he has gone by "P. B." for the entirety of his adult life, prompting endless speculation by his associates. Nevertheless, he is respected and well-liked by his officers, though they sometimes grow weary of his verses. In addition to poetry, Perelman enjoys tequila, playing the guitar and—until recently—working on his boat, a 32-foot late-1960s cigarette boat outfitted with twin Corvette 454 engines. The boat was still unnamed when it was destroyed by a tornado during the events of Crooked River.

Perelman is tall and tanned with sun-bleached hair. As a young man, he studied to become a rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, but suddenly dropped out just months shy of his Master's degree. He wandered out west and ended up in Humboldt County, California, where he happened upon a confrontation between groups of loggers and environmentalists in the midst of a redwood forest. Playing mediator between the law and advocates of nature—both of which resonated with him—spurred him to join the Forest Service, which eventually led him fully into law enforcement.

Some time later, he was working for the Jupiter Police Department in Florida when he was offered a promotion to relocate to Sanibel. Upon his arrival, he took over the investigation into the two-month-old murder of Randall Wilkinson, the last full-time resident of Sanibel's infamous Mortlach House. The case went unsolved and remained a sensitive subject with Perelman until its resolution ten years later with the assistance of Constance Greene.

Perelman still resides in Sanibel, in a house on Coconut Drive that he shared with his Irish setter, Sligo.