Death and Honesty (22 page)
Authors: Cynthia Riggs
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Cozy
Thanks to all of you who have become friends of Victoria Trumbull through libraries, bookstores, and borrowing from fellow readers. I love getting your letters and e-mails. Victoria is very much alive to me, and I gather she is to you, too. She’ll stay ninety-two forever, which she claims is her best year so far.
Jonathan Revere continues to feed me ideas for writing my way out of the outrageous situations Victoria gets herself into. And, if it weren’t for Arlene Silva and the Vermont College MFA program, Victoria would never have realized her sleuthing talent.
It’s become a tradition to put up for auction to fund scholarships at Vermont College a weekend at the Cleaveland House bed-and-breakfast, plus having one’s name in the next Victoria Trumbull book. Mindy LePere won the honor this time, and makes an appearance as a nurse. She had no choice about her character. At least she’s not a villain.
Little did Jordan Ronson know when he first sat at the cookroom table and shared his woes with me about a neighbor’s psychotic rooster, that he and the rooster would become an integral part of the book. Thanks to both you and Chickee, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent.
Here are some of the many people who’ve helped me with my writing, researching, editing, critiquing, and hand-holding. From the Howes House writers there are longtime members Jackie Sexton, Shirley Mayhew, Jeanne Hewett, and Ethel Sherman. There’s poet and birder Sally Williams, photographer/publisher Valerie Sonnenthal, author Ernie Weiss—read his cliff-hanging escape book
Out of Vienna
—Nelson Potter, computer genius Ed Housman, Gerry Jackman Dean, Rabbi Carla Theodore, artist Barbara Moment, and musician Charles Blank. From the Sunday Night Writers there’s Carolyn O’Daly, whose essays are sure to be
picked up by National Public Radio, Rev. Bonna-Whitten Stovall, who writes of Mississippi and Southern Baptists, Rev. Judy Campbell, working on her third mystery, sailor and company starterupper Geoff Parkhurst, and Elissa Lash, who makes the life of an ecdysiast both poignant and hilarious. I hope I haven’t forgotten any of you.
Out of Vienna
—Nelson Potter, computer genius Ed Housman, Gerry Jackman Dean, Rabbi Carla Theodore, artist Barbara Moment, and musician Charles Blank. From the Sunday Night Writers there’s Carolyn O’Daly, whose essays are sure to be
picked up by National Public Radio, Rev. Bonna-Whitten Stovall, who writes of Mississippi and Southern Baptists, Rev. Judy Campbell, working on her third mystery, sailor and company starterupper Geoff Parkhurst, and Elissa Lash, who makes the life of an ecdysiast both poignant and hilarious. I hope I haven’t forgotten any of you.
Thanks to Alvida and Ralph Jones and to Ann and Bill Fielder who’ve gone over every one of my manuscripts.
Most of all, thanks to Nancy Love, my agent; and Ruth Cavin, Editor, and Toni Plummer, Associate Editor, who work long and patient hours at Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press.
Thank you all.
An explanation may be needed. Martha’s Vineyard is one of eleven islands in the County of Dukes County. Redundant, I know, but that’s the way it is. Hence we have the County Sheriff of the County of Dukes County.
Shooting Star
Indian Pipes
The Paperwhite Narcissus
Jack in the Pulpit
The Cemetery Yew
The Cranefly Orchid Murders
Deadly Nightshade
Indian Pipes
The Paperwhite Narcissus
Jack in the Pulpit
The Cemetery Yew
The Cranefly Orchid Murders
Deadly Nightshade
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEATH AND HONESTY. Copyright © 2009 by Cynthia Riggs.
All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
First Edition: May 2009
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
eISBN 9781429937535
First eBook Edition : August 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Riggs, Cynthia.
Death and honesty : a Martha’s Vineyard mystery / Cynthia Riggs.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35605-7
ISBN-10: 0-312-56705-7
1. Trumbull, Victoria (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Older women—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Real estate appraisers—Fiction. 5. Rich people—Fiction. 6. Martha’s Vineyard (Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3681.I394D45 2009
813’.6—dc22
2009003620
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