Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

Overview

Discovery of a hex ring attached to a finger bone on Ruth's Vermont farm soon ends up in a Fall Harvest of Bones!

"This is a well-wrought tale...evokes a strong sense of place and creates realistic characters coping with human--and--humorous problems."
--Publishers Weekly

"Wright melds setting and character with the skill of Stephen Dobyns in his Saratoga mysteries."
--Booklist

"Vividly offbeat characters and warm accounts of life on the farm...a solid follow-up to Wright's promising first outing, Mad Season."
--Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780595348374
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/13/2005
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.68(d)

Editorial Reviews

Wright (Mad Season, 1997) again pits small-town Vermonters against outsiders in this well-wrought tale of past crimes haunting the present. Ruth Willmarth, deserted by her handsome farmer husband, is beset on all sides. She has the farm to manage, a teenaged daughter anxious for her parents to reunite, and there are suspicious doings next door, where Fay Hubbard has turned the Flint farm into a B&B. After Ruth's farmhand finds a buried fingerbone, Fay's dog unearths a skeleton missing a finger. Hartley Flint, the daughter of Fay's landlord, arrives with her befuddled Great Aunt Glenna, who identifies the skeleton as her former husband whom she may have murdered. Ruth's occasional suitor, Colm Hubbard--real estate agent, cop and mortician--discovers that Glenna's ex is alive in Manhattan. Establishing the skeleton's identity and cause of death hinge on solving a 20-year-old puzzle. Meanwhile, the police investigate a poisoning at Healing House, a home for abused women, and the suspicious behavior of the dead woman's husband as well as that of old Alwyn Bagshaw, whose property abuts Healing House. Although Wright relies on some coincidences to resolve the mystery, she evokes a strong sense of place and creates realistic characters coping with human--and humorous--problems. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A journey to the farmland near Branbury, Vermont, where Fay Hubbard, in the aftermath of a painful divorce, has rented a house from distant cousin Homer Flint, planning to start a bed- and-breakfast and a new life. She gets some help in the rudiments of farm life from neighbor Ruth Willmarth, but tourists are scarce and Fay is happy when Kevin Crowningshield rents a room. He's in the area to check on his wife Angie, one of several women living in the nearby so-called Healing House, a property Angie had inherited, to the frustration of eccentric Alwyn Bagshaw, who owns the abutting acreage. Meanwhile, Homer Flint's Aunt Glenna, scheduled for a nursing home but fighting it all the way, has moved into Fay's house, her old home, with her young niece Hartley. On top of this, a skeleton has been unearthed on Ruth's land that could be Glenna's husband Mac MacInnesþunheard from for years. Colm Hanna, part-time policeman and son of the local mortician, is assigned the job of finding MacInnes in New York. He succeeds, bringing Mac back to Vermont and tackling the daunting job of identifying the skeleton and figuring out who buried it and whyþall this complicated by some scary happenings at Healing House. The author's vividly offbeat characters and her warm accounts of life on the farm are more convincing than the elaborate plot, but, overall, this is a solid follow-up to Wright's promising first outing (Mad Season, 1996).

Kirkus Reviews