So Shall You Reap

Beekeeper Sara Hoving's past comes to haunt her in this compelling and solidly written suspense novel. When her mother-in-law persuades a reluctant Sara to take the lead role in a pageant commemorating the bicentennial of their hometown, Taconic Hills (``a tiny hamlet halfway between the Hudson River and New England''), a series of bizarre mishaps ensues, culminating in a murder and a fire that nearly destroys the Hovings' farmhouse. Struggling to make some sense of these disasters, terrified by how closely they parallel certain oddly similar events of 200 years earlier, Sara must come to grips for the first time with the key fact of her personal history: her mother's mysterious abandonment of her when she was only four. As she finds herself inextricably drawn into the puzzling tangle the bicentennial celebration has become, long-buried memories of the day her mother disappeared begin to surface. She suspects that her father, Roy Stanton, her mother-in-law, Ruth Hoving, and the other prominent members of their small community possess secrets that will bring her closer to the truth. Cleverly intertwining all the plot threads, Wallace ( A Single Stone ) makes connections for Sara--and for the reader as well--that provide a satisfying and entirely credible resolution. (Aug.)