Genre: Mystery
Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781950461783
Beyond the Page Publishing
240 Pages
$14.99; $4.99 Amazon
September 29, 2020
⭐⭐⭐⭐
It's rare that the summer solstice and a full moon fall on the same night, but winery manager Norrie Ellington is all too familiar with the curse that supposedly accompanies the event: the death by suffocation of someone in the area. She's inclined to write the whole thing off as folktale nonsense -- until the president of the local historical society is found smothered on that very night. Local law enforcement aren't quite so superstitious, however, and they've pegged a close friend of Norrie's for the murder.
Determined to discredit the curse and get her friend off the hook, Norrie begins digging into the background of the victim, only to discover that he had no shortage of enemies. And as evidence emerges of his questionable connections and shady dealings, Norrie follows a trail of clues that leads her smack into the racing world at Watkins Glen. She'll have to shift into overdrive to save her friend, because curse or not, there's a flesh-and-blood killer dead set on making Norrie the next victim...
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Norrie Ellington is managing her family's winery while her sister and her sister's husband are off on an entomology expedition. She expects them home soon, and just wants to get back to her life in Manhattan, where she's a screenwriter -- which she's currently doing from their home.
Looking for information on an old family legend about deaths that occur when the summer solstice has a full moon -- the last one being in 1948 -- she overhears a conversation between another winery owner and the head of the historical society, Vance Wexler, and it's not a good one, either. But when a group of entomologists are nearby, and being disturbed by a group of historical society people who are searching for arrowheads, things get testy. So testy that when someone is murdered, a friend of Norrie's is suspected of murder.
When the local police don't seem to be taking any interest in information Norrie has brought them, she figures the only thing she can do is look around on her own. Enlisting the help of two men who own another winery, she clandestinely starts a search of her own, finding out more about the dead man than she wanted to know. Now all she has to do is find a killer without raising the suspicions of the local police. Easy, right?...
This is the sixth book in the series and just as good as the first. I enjoyed reading it mostly because Norrie can hold her own among others. She doesn't get flustered, and she manages to run the winery, do her job, and still find time to investigate a murder. She doesn't let her two businesses slide which is nice to see.
The plot is an interesting one, actually centering around a curse that two women suspected of being witches placed on the area when they died, and it seems that whenever there's a full moon on the summer solstice a death by suffocation will occur. Even though Norrie 'pooh-poohs' the idea herself, she starts to become a believer and will do anything to break the curse so her winery will be safe.
But when that leads to the discovery of a murder that seems to be much more than it actually is, she finds herself in a race against time to find the object that is causing the problems. She enlists the help of Theo and Don, a couple who own another winery and have helped her before, to find answers without letting anyone know what they're doing.
If anything, this book had plenty of action to it, and when one thing led to another, it seemed to bring a dead end, only to start up again somewhere else. Needless to say, it kept me reading right through the end, which is a good thing.
When the ending comes and the killer is discovered, the motive is as old as time itself. While it all comes about in the end, I would have liked to have some clue to the murderer, but it was not to be. Still and all, I will read the next in the series. Recommended.
More on J.C. Eaton's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/e/j-c-eaton/
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