In this 28th book in the 'Lucy Stone' series, the journalist/amateur sleuth searches for a missing woman. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a bonus.
*****
Lucy Stone, who lives in Tinker's Cove, Maine, is a wife, mother, and reporter for the local Courier newspaper.
Lucy and her husband Bill have four grown children, three of whom live in Greece, France, and Alaska respectively.
The Stones' youngest daughter Zoe, who still lives at home, is about to graduate college and move to Portland, Maine for a job. Lucy is concerned about her child, and gets drawn into Zoe's hunt for affordable housing.
Lucy has other things on her mind as well. Her centenarian friend - retired librarian Julia Ward Howe Tilley - has been hospitalized with pneumonia and JUST recovered enough to be sent to Heritage House for rehab.
Heritage House is an elder care facility with three levels of support: minimum - for healthy people who come and go as they please; moderate - for residents who need some assistance; and skilled nursing - for patients who require careful monitoring. Miss Tilley is in skilled nursing, where she's overseen by staff and gets physical therapy.
Lucy is familiar with Heritage House because she's covered stories there, like last year's Easter Bonnet Contest, which was won by Agnes Neal.
Agnes is an independent woman who lives at Heritage House for the perks, such as meals, activities, and room cleaning. One morning Agnes leaves to go bird watching and doesn't return in a timely manner.
Agnes' daughter Geri becomes concerned, but doesn't get much traction from the Heritage House staff or the police, who suggest Agnes went to visit a friend. So Geri calls Lucy, who agrees to search for the missing woman.
After a day passes the cops get involved, but Agnes seems to have vanished. By now Lucy has become suspicious of Heritage House, where no one appears very concerned about Agnes' disappearance.
Moreover, the facility has a kind of high school atmosphere, with the elderly women forming snobby cliques and competing for the attention of the (very few) men.
In any case, Lucy asks Miss Tilley to secretly look out for anything 'off' at Heritage House, and Miss Tilley agrees in return for two bottles of sherry. 🙂
The book revolves around what happened to Agnes, but also covers Lucy's other activities. These include: accompanying her daughter Zoe to look for an apartment in Portland, and writing newspaper articles about this year's Easter Bonnet Contest, a bear family going dumpster diving at a gas station, and Maine's alewives migration. Lucy also investigates financial shenanigans at Heritage House.
The mysteries are eventually solved in a dramatic fashion, with Lucy and Miss Tilley in the middle of the action.
I enjoyed the book but feel more chapters should have been devoted to the mystery and less to Lucy's miscellaneous endeavors. Still, this is an entertaining cozy, recommended to fans of the series.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Karen White, who does an excellent job voicing the characters.
Thanks to Netgalley, Leslie Meyer, and Dreamscape Media for a copy of the book.
Rating: 3 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment