Part of Series
It's just another day at the dentist's office for Victoria Trumbull when fellow patient, wealthy Mrs. Wilmington, dies. It's an unfortunate, though seemingly not murderous incident, but the receptionist is hysterical, so one of the dental assistants offers to drive her home. But after making a quick pit stop, he finds her body floating in the harbor. With the police shorthanded due to an upcoming presidential visit, it's up to Victoria to take on the case. As she wrestles with her ex-son-in-law, a $3 million will, and a deadly dental clinic, Mrs. Trumbull discovers that nothing in the case is quite what it seems.
Author
Cynthia Riggs, a tall gray-haired and imposing figure, is a 13th generation Islander, the mother of five and daughter of author and poet Dionis Coffin Riggs and school principal and printmaker Sidney N. Riggs. With a degree in geology, her own remarkable resumé — writing for the National Geographic Society and Smithsonian (she spent two months in Antarctica), working in public relations for the American Petroleum Institute, operating boat charters (she lived on a 44-foot houseboat for 12 years), running the Chesapeake Bay Ferry Boat Company, and being a rigger at Martha's Vineyard Shipyard. After enrolling six years ago in the Master of Fine Arts creative writing program at Vermont College, Riggs found yet another calling. She has become a successful mystery writer. All her mysteries take place on the Vineyard, and all draw from local scenes and fictionalized composites of Island characters. She knows them all well, having been a two-time candidate for West Tisbury selectman ("No, I don't think I'll do that again"), a commissioner on the Martha's Vineyard Commission, a member of what is now the Martha's Vineyard Arts Council, and an active Island voice in both politics and human rights causes.
