Part of Series
Victoria Trumbull, ninety-two-year-old native of Martha's Vineyard, is savoring the sea air over Vineyard Sound with her granddaughter, Elizabeth, when she spots a person who seems in trouble near the top of the cliff. Elizabeth goes for help, but it's too late—the man dies before he can be rescued. The man had been hired as a consultant to see whether a site's soil could support a sewage system for a possible casino. The police call it an accident, but his death is just the first in what becomes a series of baffling murders, involving a Harley Davidson and Indian motorcyclists' rally, tribal disputes, squabbling developers, and deeply buried family secrets. Victoria, who was named a deputy police officer after she proved how valuable she was to fighting crime on the Island, is on the case, assisted by her Wampanoag friend Dojan Minnowfish. Her official position is giving her the confidence to take risks that horrify police chief Casey O'Neill. But Victoria compensates for her physical limitations by out-thinking the bad guys. As in her previous books in the series, Cynthia Riggs captures the rich and varied setting of Martha's Vineyard—-from colorful Gay Head cliffs to the motorcyclists' campground where Indian pipes blossom and die—-in this stunning sixth Victoria Trumbull adventure.
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.
