Cynthia Riggs |
Cynthia Riggs has been a geologist, operator of the Chesapeake Bay Ferry, and a rigger on Martha's Vinyard.
This series is based on Martha's Vinyard, and stars the nonagenarian, Victoria Trumbull. The atmosphere and characters of the New England setting are wonderfully done. If you have any experience with people from this area you'll have plenty to chuckle at. I love the details of the island setting and the unusual place names. This is regional fiction at its best.
One small warning- language is not toned down.
Recurring Characters:
Victoria Trumbell, age 92
Elizabeth, her adult granddaughter
#1- Deadly Nightshade (2001)
Victoria is waiting on the dock for Elizabeth to finish her shift as assistant Harbormaster. It is dusk. Victoria hears a blood-curdling scream cove across the water. Elizabeth returns, but she has not heard it. The Harbormaster, Domingo, believes Victoria and the go out in a small boat to track down the noise. They find a discmboweled body, and it is a local man.
Domingo is a retired cop who has been hired from out of town for the summer. A great many local authorities are not happy about that because he knows for certain that there is a lot of skimming being done due to the lax menthod of collecting and recording harbor fees. Domingo brings in someone to set up a computer program to track the money and makes quite a few enemies.
Many of the summer hires are local highschoolers, mostly children or grandchildren of the people who think they can do anything they want. Coupled with having no work ethic they are making Domingo and Elizabeth's jobs miserable.
#2- The Cranefly Orchid Murders (2002)
#3- The Cemetery Yew (2003)
#4- Jack in the Pulpit (2004)
#5- The Paperwhite Narcissus (2005)
The publisher of the local paper, Colly Jameson, is receiving threatening letters, and all of them seem to be in response to unexplained accidents or deaths in the area. The truth is that nobody likes Colly anyway. He's a narcissistic bully with 4 ex-wives and one unhappy current wife. He is firing staff members, claiming he doesn't need them in the summer when the truth is that he just wasn't to use college-age interns for free.
However, an attempted murder, a successful murder, and an unexplained death all seem linked to Colly.
When he fires Victoria Trumbull, she goes to work for Tom Botts who is printing a weekly, one-page, alternative news sheet. She also gets Colly to pay her to find out who is sending the threatening letters.
#6- Indian Pipes (2006)
#7- Shooting Star (2007)
#8- Death and Honesty (2009)
#9- Touch-Me-Not (2010)
#10 The Bee Balm Murders (2011)
