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Moonlight in Vermont
Mark Kinson is an ex-marine, a veteran of the Iraq war, an expert in martial arts and, according to his boss, a terrible private investigator. When he makes a serious blunder and is fired he figures his career is over. It is then that he gets the break of a lifetime. With some help from his sister, he lands a job investigating a murder in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Almost immediately upon arriving however, the case begins to take twists and turns that he could never have imagined, including a bizarre treasure hunt that has an outrageous and exciting conclusion. His main concern, however, is finding the identity of the person that shot John Moorehead. He wades through the many clues but they don't seem to add up. Could the killer be the mild mannered house servant? The doctor? Possibly the matronly woman who serves as a maid and cook? Certainly not the victim's own daughter. Or could it be the very one that hired him, the victims wife? Whoever it is, they keep one step ahead of the sleuth until the very end when suddenly all the many clues, or more precisely several specific ones, come together and he makes a stunning realization. Will he finally figure it out? Will You? The clues are all there for him (and the reader) in this old fashioned styled mystery with contemporary and fascinating characters. And with a surprise ending that will grab the reader by the throat it is a must read for murder mystery buffs.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 27, 2013
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February 2, 2017
This is an apparently self-published mystery novel by a Vermont author (there’s no copyright page, no publisher listed). I picked it up in the “local authors” section of the redoubtable store Mystery on Main Street, in Brattleboro. It’s a good first effort, though not completely up to professional standards.
The mystery itself was interesting enough, a kind of locked room murder. There was a lot of post-murder excitement with the will and a search for hidden treasure, which was in no degree believable but nonetheless entertaining. My main issue was a number of flaws in which unbelievable things happened in order to further the mystery. For example, the investigator drives to a doctor’s office, and parked in front, he watches a suspect being examined by the doctor. What? And the victim’s will specifies that all the suspects must remain on the property, allowing for more skullduggery. Who says that in a will?
The writing was generally competent, but there is no real local feel. The action takes place on a Vermont estate (the equivalent to an English country home), but there’s not much sense of Vermont in the book. The author is not always good at evocative descriptions, such as referring to a character’s “feminine figure.” And he also has a bad habit of ending chapters with an authorial warning about what is to come, along the lines of, “But Mark had no idea that his plan would be interrupted by... *murder*!” This is the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a Victorian melodrama, not a modern novel.
Anyway, the book was worth a read, though it could have used some editing. The author has some talent and hopefully will continue to improve in future books.
The mystery itself was interesting enough, a kind of locked room murder. There was a lot of post-murder excitement with the will and a search for hidden treasure, which was in no degree believable but nonetheless entertaining. My main issue was a number of flaws in which unbelievable things happened in order to further the mystery. For example, the investigator drives to a doctor’s office, and parked in front, he watches a suspect being examined by the doctor. What? And the victim’s will specifies that all the suspects must remain on the property, allowing for more skullduggery. Who says that in a will?
The writing was generally competent, but there is no real local feel. The action takes place on a Vermont estate (the equivalent to an English country home), but there’s not much sense of Vermont in the book. The author is not always good at evocative descriptions, such as referring to a character’s “feminine figure.” And he also has a bad habit of ending chapters with an authorial warning about what is to come, along the lines of, “But Mark had no idea that his plan would be interrupted by... *murder*!” This is the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a Victorian melodrama, not a modern novel.
Anyway, the book was worth a read, though it could have used some editing. The author has some talent and hopefully will continue to improve in future books.
Displaying 1 of 1 review