Jack in the Pulpit - Hardcover

Riggs, Cynthia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312330111 ISBN 13: 9780312330118

Verlag: Minotaur Books, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

There's more than one reason the new West Tisbury police chief officially made 92-year old Victoria Trumbull her deputy. For one thing, Victoria knows just about everything about everyone in town, and a lot about the rest of the Martha's Vineyard year-round population as well. Not to mention their ancestors. Victoria may be afflicted with the usual aches and pains that descend on nonagenarians (she has a cutoff shoe to accommodate her bunion, and a stout stick to help her on her walks across the fields and in the woods). But she is as sharp and as sharpeyed as the proverbial tack. So it's not odd that when Victoria is the only one who notices something amiss among the gravestones of the West Tisbury cemetery, the chief listens.

Something is indeed amiss. Responding to a request by presumed relatives in the Midwest to disinter a coffin for reburying elsewhere, things go wrong from the start. The driver of the hearse coming to collect the coffin disappears during the Island ferry trip in a rainstorm. Other deaths - some of them irrefutably murder, the others suspicious - follow. And when as a last measure the coffin is found, dug up and opened, it does not contain the expected body. Insult upon injury, the coffin itself disappears.

Meanwhile, the available for rent bedroom in Victoria's house has been taken over by a woman relative of one of their neighbors and her raucous toucan, a bird as spoiled as the most bratty millionaire's heir. Victoria is graceful about her unwanted boarders; but they do interfere with the column she writes for the local newspaper and with her efforts to discover whether the strange antics of the coffin are related to the murders.

Victoria is the most realistic and the most delightful nonagenarian in mystery fiction. Her years have not blunted her intelligence and her sharp wit. We're lucky that she's still around and seems to be set for a long time.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cynthia Riggs, a thirteenth generation Islander, lives on Martha's Vineyard in her family homestead, which she runs as a bed-and-breakfast catering to poets and writers. She has a degree in geology from Antioch College and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College and holds a U.S. Coast Guard Masters License (100-ton). This is her third published mystery.

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Everybody Loves Victoria

Praise for Deadly Nightshade

"[A] well-written mystery, with a host of very believable-as well as some very eccentric-characters...For a first novel, this one is quite special."
-- Mystery News

"Riggs shows her gift for characterizations that will have her audience clamoring for an ongoing series at least until Victoria turns one hundred."
-- Midwest Book Review

"First-rate plotting notwithstanding, it is Riggs's wonderful cast of characters that brings her novel to life . . Here's hoping Victoria Trumbull is solving crimes for many years to come."
-- ALA Booklist

"Feisty, fiercely independent nonagenarian Victoria Trumbull makes a welcome debut in Riggs's first novel ... The book's dedicatee, Donis Coffin Riggs (1898-1997), native Vineyarder and poet, would seem to be the model for Victoria. Everyone should have such a terrific grandmother."
--Publisher's Weekly

Praise for the The Cranefly Orchid Murders

"Riggs . . .knows the Island - its flora, fauna, families, legends, customs and rumors - so well that every pace she puts her senior sleuth through becomes another delightful discovery."
--Book Page

"The author is well aware of the comedy involving people who take themselves seriously, and adds a nice satiric touch when describing the utopians, the environmentalists, the developers, the big-wigs and the would-be bigwigs. Once again, Ms. Riggs' knowledge of the Island and its people serves her and her readers well."
--The Martha's Vineyard Times

"Riggs is not afraid to describe elderly poet Victoria Trumbull realistically - wrinkles and all . . . first-rate plotting . . . wonderful cast of characters . . In addition to the endearing, yet never sentimentalized Victoria, the supporting figures are uniformly compelling and thoroughly believable. . . here's hoping Victoria Trumbull is solving crimes for many years to come"
--ALA Booklist

Rezensionen

In this fourth installment in her Victoria Trumbull series, Riggs offers a kind of prequel that explains why Victoria's granddaughter, Elizabeth, first came to live with her 92-year-old grandmother, and how Victoria became a deputy for the West Tisbury police. While the town's old and new ministers--both named Jack--try to forge a positive relationship, West Tisbury's residents are dropping like flies. Four people die within a short time, and all appear to have eaten gifts of food. New police chief Casey O'Neill relies on Victoria, who knows the town and everyone in it, to help her figure out what's going on. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is stalked by her psychotic ex-husband, and Victoria is feuding with the "Meals on Wheels" driver with whom she had a fender-bender. Readers who appreciate Riggs' incorporation of the flora and fauna of Martha's Vineyard into her stories will be pleased that this tale also features evocative descriptions of island plants and birds. This pleasant trip back in time will give Victoria's fans a better appreciation of the notable nonagenarian. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Minotaur Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312330111
• ISBN 13: 9780312330118
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar