In this sequel to Taylor's lyrical series debut, Agony Hill, Detective Frank Warren and his formerly CIA-connected neighbor Alice Bellows return to investigate the death of a federal judge.
It's November of 1965 and the second weekend of Vermont's regular deer season. Vermont State Police detective Franklin Warren is hunting in the woods when he gets a call to return to Bethany. There's been an accident at The Ridge Club, an exclusive men's hunting and fishing club for congressmen, diplomats, judges, and titans of industry: a former ambassador has been shot while out hunting. With the war in Vietnam picking up speed on the other side of the world, Warren quickly realizes that many of the club's members are powerful men who may have ulterior motives and connections in high places.
While Warren's suspicions about the club members build, his neighbor Alice Bellows is throwing a dinner party, preparing for Thanksgiving, and worrying about her pregnant friend and fellow widow, Sylvie Weber, whose due date is coming up. When Alice's old handler and friend, Arthur Crannock, unexpectedly shows up in Bethany, Alice begins to wonder whether his presence has anything to do with the death at the hunting club.
As an early season snowstorm bears down on Bethany, Warren and his assistant, Trooper Pinky Goodrich, are trapped at the Ridge Club, likely along with a killer, and Alice. She's increasingly fearful that her past in the intelligence world is no longer in the past and will have to act fast to save Sylvie and her baby.
Sarah Stewart Taylor's historical series combines the intricacy of a satisfying mystery with keen observation of a time and place during great transformation and upheaval. SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series, set in New England, the Maggie D'arcy mysteries, set in Ireland and on Long Island, and Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in rural Vermont in the 1960s. Sarah has been nominated for an Agatha Award and for the Dashiell Hammett Prize and her mysteries have appeared on numerous Best of the Year lists. A former journalist and teacher, she writes and lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries.
