Trouble Island

A woman stumbles across a murder victim while escaping from a remote island in this deliciously twisty standalone from Short (the Kinship series, as Jess Montgomery). In 1931, Aurelia Escalante arrives on Lake Erie’s Trouble Island to work as a maid for Rosita McGee, owner of the island’s only mansion. Gradually, readers learn that “Aurelia” is an alias, that she’s running from a crime she committed years earlier, and that her relationship with Rosita has slid from comfortable to complicated. Aurelia is alarmed when crooked ex-cop Cormac Herlihy, who once vowed to kill her, arrives at the mansion as a guest of Rosita’s husband, Eddie. She tries to flee to the mainland with a box of jewels she recently discovered at the bottom of the lake, but shortly after she arrives at the shore, she discovers Rosita’s bloated corpse. Then an ice storm cuts her off from the mainland. She informs Eddie of Rosita’s death, and a search begins for her killer, with suspects including Herlihy and Eddie’s other guests—a doctor, a famous actor, and a gangster. Aurelia’s urgent first-person narration bestows the narrative with plenty of tension, which Short supplements with well-drawn supporting characters and several devilish reversals. Readers will have little trouble finishing this in a single sitting. (Dec.)