Disco Dead

by Marcia Talley

Overview

A trip to the local cemetery draws Hannah into a puzzling case stretching back forty years.

It may seem creepy, but Hannah Ives enjoys her expeditions to the local cemetery to help people find their deceased relatives. Usually a quiet affair, Hannah is surprised when she encounters Isabel 'Izzy' Randall laying flowers on the grave of Amy Madison, a college senior who was killed in 1978. Last seen in a popular Annapolis disco bar, Amy's murder remains unsolved.

Hannah's interest in the case leads her to join Silent Sleuths, a small, passionate group of 'citizen detectives' dedicated to trying to solve cases like Amy's, and their research soon suggests that Amy may have been the first of several victims targeted by a serial killer. As DNA from the scene of the murder throws up surprising results, their investigation takes them down unexpected avenues. Is Amy's killer still alive, or has an untimely death taken them beyond justice?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448307951
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Series:	A Hannah Ives Mystery , #19
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Marcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of eighteen previous crime novels featuring sleuth Hannah Ives. Her short stories appear in more than a dozen collections and have been reprinted in several of The Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories anthologies. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime, Inc. Marcia lives in Annapolis, Maryland, but spends the winter months in a quaint Loyalist cottage in the Bahamas.

www.marciatalley.com

Editorial Reviews

09/12/2022

The 1978 murder of 17-year-old Amy Madison, who spent her last night dancing at an Annapolis, Md., disco in the company of two Naval Academy cadets, drives Talley’s satisfying 19th Hannah Ives mystery (after 2021’s Done Gone). Forty years later, Amy’s killer is still at large. A chance meeting brings Hannah, a “search angel” who helps people trace their family trees, and Isabella “Izzy” Randall, a sidelined investigative reporter, together to solve the cold case. Hannah partners with Izzy and Izzy’s friends—Mark Wallis, a military chaplain with a master’s degree in criminal psychology, and Jack Shelton, a former Baltimore homicide detective—to use their respective skills to trace the case’s decades-old clues. With Hannah doggedly hunting through genealogy websites with now-available DNA information, Izzy interviewing witnesses, Jack looking through similar killings, and Mark searching Navy files, the four (aka the Silent Sleuths) prepare to deliver long-overdue justice to a serial killer with a victim in every port. Many will appreciate that the characters rely on brains rather than brawn. This intelligent mystery series deserves a long run. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

The smart, principled main character, along with the richly described Annapolis, MD, setting and the warm family relationships at the heart of the story, are the main sources of appeal

Booklist on Done Gone

The long-running Hannah Ives Mystery series shows no signs of slowing down

Booklist

2022-08-31
A do-gooder gets a new mission as part of an amateur sleuthing group that's working on a murder from the disco era.

Hannah Ives is one of those people who’s always doing something. She informs her adult daughter, Emily, whom she runs into at the crowded Annapolis Trader Joe’s, that her next stop is the cemetery, where she’s been taking pictures of headstones for relatives who may not be able to see them in person through FindAGrave.com (a real website). Emily can’t help but tease Hannah about her constant do-something nature, but Hannah’s involvement with all sorts of projects has brought her a lot of joy and a lot of experience solving mysteries. At St. Luke’s Cemetery some 20 minutes later, Hannah runs into Isabel Randall, from local station WBNF-TV, who recognizes Hannah from her 18 previous investigations. After Izzy tells Hannah the story of Amy Madison, a young woman killed by an unknown assailant after a night at a popular local disco in 1978, Hannah joins Izzy and the group of citizen detectives who call themselves the Silent Sleuths in an effort to find out what happened to Amy and give her poor parents some relief. Her meticulous research uses DNA details found at the scene to suggest a shocking twist: Amy’s murder may not be an isolated event but the first work of a serial killer. Worse yet, if the Silent Sleuths can’t find evidence the killer has been stopped, is it possible that he could kill again?

The telling details that urge readers along the way might even end up teaching them something.

Kirkus Reviews