Publisher's Weekly Review
Victoria Trumbull, the astute, 92-year-old Vineyard native and deputy police officer, takes on her most bizarre case yet, in Riggs's third appealing Vineyard mystery (after 2002's The Cranefly Orchid Murders). An empty grave, a misplaced coffin and a missing hearse driver are the harbingers of a series of grotesque murders, whose victims turn out to share an odd South American connection involving smuggling and an exotic bird. The author lends ballast to an outlandish plot by lovingly depicting ordinary island people (awkward teens, a friendly police chief, small-town officials with their rivalries and gossips) and events (notably the return of the local high school football team from the big game against Nantucket). The unfamiliar portrait of the Vineyard in winter is another plus. With patience and charm, the down-to-earth Victoria succeeds in drawing out confidences. In the end, even she is surprised. Agent, Nancy Love. (Sept. 8) Forecast: An attractive jacket, with green and red berries on a snowy yew branch, should ensure sales into the Christmas season. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Bodies everywhere except where they belong--in a tidy plot. Let's see. One man turns up in the West Tisbury dump, another in a mortuary fridge, another heaved over the railing of the Martha's Vineyard ferry. The only proper burial, of the young Norton girl who committed suicide ten years ago, turns out to be just as improper. When her coffin is exhumed for reburial in Wisconsin, she's not in it, just hefty bags of sand. In fact, island gossip insists she never existed in the first place. Quicker than you can say "empty plot," her coffin disappears, except for a back panel that nonagenarian sleuth Victoria Trumbull hides for safekeeping. And more skullduggery is afoot. Cancer-stricken Dahlia Atherton, a former foreign-service employee, is offered a cup of poisoned tea. Victoria averts the brewhaha, then listens while Dahlia explains her complicity in a gem-smuggling scheme and shifts blame to a double-crossing accomplice and the fence they both trusted. Two improbable plot twists later, the murders are solved, the gems have appeared and then vanished, and the Vineyard has all winter to prepare for another onslaught of tourists. Even lovers of pesky amateur sleuths and Martha's Vineyard lore will agree it's past time for Victoria (The Cranefly Orchid Murders, 2002, etc.) to retire for good. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Can a 92-year-old protagonist engage readers of all ages? Definitely, as proven in this third adventure featuring nonagenarian Victoria Trumbull. As the snow begins to fly in the quaint village of West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard, Victoria welcomes a visitor to her cozy home. Dahlia Atherton, on the island to visit her cousin Howland, moves in with Victoria when Howland's house proves too dusty and drafty. Dahlia's arrival coincides with the exhumation of a coffin supposedly containing the remains of a suicide victim. After the coffin is found to contain only sandbags, many people connected to it either disappear or are murdered. When Victoria's houseguest appears to have something to hide, the spunky sleuth puts her detective powers to work to uncover the whole story. Once again, Riggs introduces entertaining supporting characters, including town selectmen Denny Rhodes and Lucretia Noodles Woods. Her native's knowledge of Martha's Vineyard shines in the expert evocation of the picturesque community. As satisfying as a steaming bowl of chowder on a cold New England evening. --Jenny McLarin Copyright 2003 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Victoria Trumbull, the island's elderly poet and sleuth, wonders why a coffin meant for reburial in Milwaukee disappears. More sinister is the fact that several people interested in the coffin wind up dead. A most appealing and unusual tale. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
