Publisher's Weekly Review
A decades-old murder case brings together a grandmother and granddaughter in this excellent inspirational mystery from Wright (The House on Foster Hill). Imogene Grayson discovered her sister, Hazel, murdered in their attic in 1946 and has devoted her life to finding justice. Seventy years later, and no closer to knowing the truth, Imogene is a grumpy nonagenarian who's never gotten over the loss of her beloved sister. Imogene's granddaughter, Aggie Dunkirk, receives a letter from Imogene requesting a visit while she recovers from a broken hip. Grudgingly, Aggie complies, only to discover that Imogene has lied about her broken hip to gain Aggie's sympathy, there is a skeleton in her backyard, and she has a disturbing dollhouse that appears to be a recreation of a murder scene. In sections set in the mid-century, Imogene begins her investigation which quickly goes cold. In sections set in the present, Aggie takes a job restoring a flooded cemetery with handsome archaeologist Collin O'Shaughnessy. Together they discover secrets among the graves, along with roses with messages written on the petals. They soon realize someone wants them to stay away from the grave of Hazel Grayson, and when Aggie makes the connection to her grandmother, she dives fully into solving the mystery of Hazel's murder. Wright eloquently weaves in Imogene's faith and belief in redemption, and the prose easily jumps between the two eras as Aggie gets closer to the truth. Fans of Terri Blackstock will love this. Agent: Janet Kobobel, Books & Such (Dec.)
Kirkus Review
An unemployed realtor confronts her grandmother's obsession with a decades-old crime.Wright (The Curse of Misty Wayfair, 2019, etc.) glosses over the reason Aggie Dunkirk was fired from her high-powered jobsomething to do with expired licenses for the agents she supervised. The real reason for her career's demise is to get her back home to live with her strong-willed, imperious grandmother Mumsie. Aggie finds work at a local cemetery trying to recatalog gravesites disturbed by a recent flood, a job that gives her the chance to meet Collin O'Shaughnessy, a charming archaeologist with an accent that places his background somewhere in the former British Empire. Collin helps her cope with the shock of finding a dollhouse diorama in her grandmother's attic depicting a young girl killed in her bedroom at the end of the Second World War. Wright toggles back and forth between Aggie's grisly discovery and the story of Imogene Grayson, sister of a girl also murdered in her bedroom at the end of the war, until the two narratives intersect. Both past and present stories feel seriously underrealized because both the settings and events are described mainly in terms of the feelings they provoke in the characters. Even physical traits, like Mumsie's flashing emerald eyes and Collin's glowing copper hair, seem proxies for emotions. Where will all this trauma lead? It takes forever to find out. Reads like therapy notes by a clinician who needs better supervision. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Mill Creek, Wisconsin, is the last place Aggie Dunkirk wants to be after losing her job, but her estranged grandmother lives there, and she is the only family Aggie has left. When Aggie takes a temporary position remapping graves in a flood-damaged cemetery, sinister mysteries from the town's murderous past are raised from the dead. As secrets from her own family history are reawakened and strange messages torment them, Aggie and her grandmother dig for answers to a decades-old cold case. But it becomes terrifyingly clear that someone or something is determined to thwart their efforts. In a chilling tale that links 1946 and the present, Wright (The Curse of Misty Wayfair, 2019) conducts a haunting and profound examination of human grief. Again she shines in her unnerving encapsulation of small-town complexities, supernatural forces both sinister and saving, and persistent loyalty to the fascinating interconnectedness of a place's past and present. Its shocking passages are balanced by themes of justice and a reassuring message of faith that provide hope in the face of unspeakable loss and pain.--Kate Campos Copyright 2019 Booklist
