Fall is a splendid season on Martha's Vineyard, with spectacular views of land and sea in the ever-changing light. The sudden death of four people in one month, all parishioners at the same church, however, upsets the island's tranquility. In Riggs's absorbing fourth Vineyard mystery (after 2003's Cemetery Yew
), Victoria Trumbull, the wise and sprightly nonagenarian island native, is caught in the middle of a jealous battle between the new minister and the retiring minister (both named Jack) at the community church. The ministers' wives are spreading gossip about the four deceased, all of whom provided handsomely for the church. If Victoria's granddaughter, a fugitive from a vengeful and abusive husband, adds to her worries, Victoria can take solace in her developing friendship with the new, city-bred police chief. A complex, well-paced plot, involving a never-mentioned grandparent, an auto accident, a dead seagull and a basket of mushrooms, comes to a neat resolution. A sensitive observer of the scene, Riggs writes with warmth and humor about all-too-human characters with whom readers can readily identify. Agent, Nancy Love. (June 16)
Forecast:
The simultaneous release of Philip Craig's latest Martha's Vineyard mystery,
Murder at a Vineyard Mansion (Forecasts, Apr. 5), will do no harm—Vineyard fanciers will have to read both. The attractive, fall-colored jacket art—of a jack-in-the-pulpit plant in the foreground and a church steeple in the background—subtly reinforces the punning title.
