Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496721433
Kensington Mystery
304 Pages
$7.99; $6.99 Amazon
August 25, 2020
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When Stella's friend inherits a creaky, abandoned home in Nantucket, she knows it's the perfect setting for the town's annual Halloween fundraiser. A deserted, boarded-up building on the property -- once used as a candle-making shop -- adds to the creepy ambiance. But as Stella explores the shack's dilapidated walls, she discovers a terrible secret: the skeleton of a Quaker woman, wrapped in blood-soaked clothing and hidden deep within a stone hearth...
While police investigate, Stella wastes no time asking for help from friends with long ties to Nantucket's intricate history. the key to the murder may lie within a scorching 18th century love triangle that pit two best friends against one another over a dubious man. But before the case is solved, another life will be claimed -- leaving Stella to wonder who in Nantucket is friend, and who is foe...
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Stella Wright owns a candle shop in Nantucket. It's close to Halloween, and she's helping the girl scouts make a scary home for a fundraiser. The home is owned by a friend of Stella's who lives in Canada, and he has generously given them permission to do so. While looking at a building out back of the house known as the shack, which were typically used for curing meats and such, she discovers that it's the old shop of a candlemaker centuries ago. But while exploring, she discovers that there's a skeleton buried in the hearth, and she calls her policeman friend Andy to inform him.
When two anthropologists arrive to inspect the skeleton, it also brings others -- an annoying historian named Bellows who thinks he should be involved, and a documentary filmmaker who wants to televise the find and turn it into a sensation. While the head anthropologist, Robert Solder, isn't interested, his assistant Leigh is. But then Stella finds there's more to the story from an old diary of another woman, and this one leads to another skeleton being found...which also leads to murder. Now Stella has to wonder who killed the person, why a major clue is missing and who has it, and if she can figure out the murder before the police do...
What follows is an intriguing story that puts a mystery within a mystery. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely devour tales like this; I love old historical mysteries within new ones, and this one made me glad that I've kept reading the series. When Stella finds an old skeleton, she has no idea what she's discovered, nor what it will eventually lead to.
The people involved are those we've seen on the sidelines of the series so far - Clemmie, the coffee shop owner, and Agnes, who works in the library; we also get to see more interaction with Stella's cousins, and I find Ted and Docker a hoot every time. They're just good ol' boys who happen to live in Nantucket and have an Eastern accent instead of a Southern one.
When the skeleton turns out to be related to one of the locals, Stella is even more intrigued, and now that she's involved in finding out who is a killer, she also wants to know more about the history of the dead person. It's a lively tale of ghosts, history, loss, murder, lies, and eventually, the truth.
When the murderer is discovered, it wasn't really a surprise, but there were enough red herrings throughout that makes you have to sift through them carefully to find the truth, and it shows how far someone will go to get what they want. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and wish I could read the next one right now. Highly recommended.
More on Christin Brecher's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/christin-brecher/
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