Martha's Vineyard Mystery (Riggs)

Martha's Vineyard has been home to Victoria Trumbull for most of her ninety-two years. Its magic, history, and picture-perfect calm are part of her very being. But one evening, Victoria hears something that doesn't quite belong: a scream followed by a splash and a sound of a car speeding away. She investigates and discovers a body on the outgoing tide. Victoria concocts a scheme to trap the killer, but she'll need to act quickly—victim number two has just been found.

Victoria Trumbull is a feisty ninety-two-year-old who refuses to let her age stop her from having fun—or investigating crime. Phoebe Eldridge, a short-tempered woman who lives alone, has sold the family land to a developer who made an offer that seemed to good to resist. When the Conservation Trust enlists Victoria to search that land for an endangered plant, she and her eleven-year-old after-school assistant are rewarded with the discovery of a little nest of cranefly orchids—and a body.

Victoria Trumbull may be ninety-two, but she is as sharp as the proverbial tack. So when she is the only one to spot something amiss in the town cemetery, the police chief listens. Something is indeed amiss. First comes a request to disinter a coffin for reburying elsewhere. Then things go wrong from there.

Cynthia Riggs gives us the story of how Victoria Trumbell, the energetic nonagenarian amateur sleuth, first came to be a police deputy. While a conflict ensues between the town's retiring minister and his successor, both named Jack, four parishioners have unexpectedly died after being sent anonymous food baskets.

A small town has its share of unpleasant residents. When a developer with an unhappy wife, a bullish attitude toward women, and a much-frowned-upon plan is murdered, not many tears are shed. The case naturally falls to Victoria Trumbull, the ninety-two-year-old, sharp-witted sheriff's deputy. Served by her in-depth knowledge of the island of Martha's Vineyard and her indomitable drive, Victoria is on the trail again: bunions, lilac-bough cane, and all.

Victoria Trumbull, ninety-two-year-old native of Martha's Vineyard, is savoring the sea air over Vineyard Sound with her granddaughter, Elizabeth, when she spots a person who seems in trouble near the top of the cliff. Elizabeth goes for help, but it's too late—the man dies before he can be rescued. The man had been hired as a consultant to see whether a site's soil could support a sewage system for a possible casino. The police call it an accident, but his death is just the first in what becomes a series of baffling murders, involving a Harley Davidson and Indian motorcyclists' rally, tribal disputes, squabbling developers, and deeply buried family secrets. Victoria, who was named a deputy police officer after she proved how valuable she was to fighting crime on the Island, is on the case, assisted by her Wampanoag friend Dojan Minnowfish. Her official position is giving her the confidence to take risks that horrify Police Chief Casey O'Neill. But Victoria compensates for her physical limitations by out-thinking the bad guys. As in her previous books in the series, Cynthia Riggs captures the rich and varied setting of Martha's Vineyard—from colorful Gay Head cliffs to the motorcyclists' campground where Indian pipes blossom and die—in this stunning sixth Victoria Trumbull adventure.

It's a case of cold feet-and cold-blooded murder-as ninety-two-year-old poet/sleuth Victoria Trumbull gets more than she bargained for after hosting an ill-fated wedding.A wedding on picturesque Martha's Vineyard promises to be the affair of the season when Penny Arbuthnot asks her cousin, feisty ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull, if she can use her property for the reception. Victoria agrees-but she has no idea what's in store for the hapless couple. For one, Penny is seriously in debt and desperate to marry money. She thinks she's on the road to riches when she hooks Rocco Bufano, whose father is a multi-billionaire. But unbeknownst to Penny, Rocco's been disowned by dad. He's also in hock up to his ears and thinks he's bagged the catch of a lifetime in a wealthy Vineyard native. He also knows that someone is out to kill him. In fact, several guests have a reason to off Rocco, among them an autistic savant with a prodigious knowledge of murder weapons. Victoria has assumed the reception will be a modest lemonade-and-gingersnap affair-but when a body is found in her cellar, it may be a happily-never-after in Widow's Wreath, the fourteenth engaging installment in Cynthia Riggs' beloved Martha's Vineyard mysteries.