Too Far to Fall by Shane Sawyer

Too Far to Fall by Shane Sawyer

This is a delightful mystery centered on Edie, a young woman who inherits a property in a small town from her aunt, Jane. The moment she opens the door to her aunt’s home, she knows something is wrong. Someone has broken in and ransacked the entire place, and the police are nice but not overly concerned. The next day, her car has been defaced with a key and her tires slashed. Again, cops are nice, but not overly concerned. In fact, they don’t get too concerned until the dead body is found and the fact that Edie hadn’t even come to the area yet when the death happened doesn’t stop at least one cop from speculating that she is a killer.

 

The town comes across as a frankly evil place. I’m not sure that was the intention, but there are so many mean people who relish spreading malicious gossip that it doesn’t come across as even slightly friendly. That’s good for the mystery, because Edie hadn’t actually intended to stay in her aunt’s property, but she has a mulish streak within her and when she’s pushed, she pushes back. That’s not good for the bad guys, because their efforts to get her to move on are having the opposite effect.

 

So why is someone so anxious to get Edie to leave? That really is the heart of the mystery that results in deaths and property destruction galore. At the same time, Edie has profound personal issues of her own to resolve that have to do with her parents dying when she was seven years old and her Aunt Jane turning her over to another aunt and uncle who mistreated Edie in some fashion and institutionalized her. There are a lot of angry feelings there, many of which are directed at the deceased aunt, and they make Edie a very complex character. She did not like her dead aunt and yet, finds herself trying to fulfill her wishes in the face of a hostile town. (Not that everyone is terrible, just almost everyone.)

 

This one’s a page turner. My one complaint is that a lot of the side and personal issues still have to be resolved at the end of the book. That was very frustrating until I realized that this is the opening act in a series. Now I’m anxiously awaiting the next book.