Death in Still Waters: A Chesapeake Bay Mystery - Softcover

Winner of the publisher's 1994 Malice Domestic competition for best first mystery, this unevenly effective tale introduces 40-year-old Eve Elliott, a New York advertising whiz gone stale, whose double-decade marriage is kaput. While visiting her beloved aunt in coastal Maryland, Eve is walking by a waterside bungalow when she observes a local man, Will St. Claire, discover that his old dog has drowned, a plastic yellow rope tight around its neck. The next day she finds the bungalow's elderly owner drowned in the same place, his own dogs locked in the house. The police label the death accidental, but gossiping villagers recall the drowning of a young woman in that spot 25 years earlier. Eve, who decides to rent the bungalow and care for the dead man's dogs, is haunted by forebodings and troubling questions. Why has someone thrown a dead animal onto her doorstep? What do some dim-witted, loutish locals have to do with these and other nasty events? Who were Will St. Claire's birth parents? A trip to New York and information from others blessed with powerful, not entirely credible, memories, help Eve solve the puzzles. Despite a surfeit of whispering pines and whimpering dogs, Lee skillfully evokes both place and populace.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

YA?The combination of a recently failed marriage and a reluctance to head up a cigarette-ad campaign compel advertising executive Eve Elliott to accept her widowed aunt's invitation to visit. Traveling to the peaceful Magothy River on the Chesapeake Bay, Eve rents the waterfront cottage of Ray Tilghman, who was found drowned in his own cove; his two dogs, Lancelot and Ezekiel, come with the cottage. Ray's death brings back local memories of the drowning of a young actress 24 years before. When Eve is warned to mind her own business, she follows her instinct that the two deaths are related and begins investigating. The locals' aversion to newcomers and land developers is realistically depicted; the two dogs are endearing and an integral part of the story. Though the killer's identity may be apparent early on, the story's twists and turns and intriguing characters will hold readers' interest.?Pam Spencer, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.