The Barnes & Noble Review
After more than a dozen novels, mystery and suspense author -- and longtime Kansan -- Nancy Pickard finally comes home to the Sunflower State in The Virgin of Small Plains, a hauntingly bittersweet story about the residents of a Kansas town and the grisly secrets some of them have kept buried for 17 years.
During a deadly blizzard in 1987, high school senior Rex Shellenberger and his older brother help their father search snow-covered pastures for newborn calves. What Rex finds instead is a breathtakingly beautiful young woman, completely naked and frozen to death, as if she just curled up and fallen asleep. The body is never identified and is eventually buried in an unmarked grave in the town cemetery. But even after 17 years, rumors still swirl around the girl and the mysterious events of that fateful night. How did she get there? Why did Mitch Newquist, the handsome son of the local judge, suddenly leave town -- and Abby, the love of his life -- never again to return? A growing number of people believe that visiting the unmarked grave will bring them miracles -- but there are those in the small town who know there is nothing inspirational about the legend of the Virgin of Small Plains. In fact, it's just the opposite…
The melancholic appeal of this unexpectedly touching novel can be found in the multitude of contradictions associated with small-town America. Pickard fittingly describes The Virgin of Small Plains as set in the place "where Truman Capote proved in In Cold Blood that small Midwestern towns can be the most deadly of all, and where Dorothy proved in The Wizard of Oz that there's no place like home." Just like real life, this novel is full of joy, desire, heartbreak, tragedy -- and, above all else, hope. Paul Goat Allen
On the night of the decade's worst blizzard, a local farm boy discovers the naked body of a beautiful young woman in the snow. Seventeen years later, the Virgin of Small Plains has become a local myth. Strange miracles have visited those who faithfully tend to her grave and Small Plains becomes a haven for those hoping the Virgin will cure them. But soon strange and sinister events unfold. What really happened seventeen years ago? And why are some of the town's leading citizens so determined that the truth remain buried?
On the night of the decade's worst blizzard, a local farm boy discovers the naked body of a beautiful young woman in the snow. Seventeen years later, the Virgin of Small Plains has become a local myth. Strange miracles have visited those who faithfully tend to her grave and Small Plains becomes a haven for those hoping the Virgin will cure them. But soon strange and sinister events unfold. What really happened seventeen years ago? And why are some of the town's leading citizens so determined that the truth remain buried?
The Virgin of Small Plains
Narrated by Kymberly Dakin
Nancy PickardUnabridged — 11 hours, 15 minutes
The Virgin of Small Plains
Narrated by Kymberly Dakin
Nancy PickardUnabridged — 11 hours, 15 minutes
Overview
On the night of the decade's worst blizzard, a local farm boy discovers the naked body of a beautiful young woman in the snow. Seventeen years later, the Virgin of Small Plains has become a local myth. Strange miracles have visited those who faithfully tend to her grave and Small Plains becomes a haven for those hoping the Virgin will cure them. But soon strange and sinister events unfold. What really happened seventeen years ago? And why are some of the town's leading citizens so determined that the truth remain buried?
Editorial Reviews
Pickard draws out the truth with tantalizing suspense, while using the mystery to illuminate the ways a community would rather live in guilt and believe in miracles than give up its dark secrets.
— The New York Times
Pickard (Storm Warnings) probes the truth behind miracles and the tragedies behind lies in this mesmerizing suspense novel set in Kansas. While rounding up newborn calves during a 1987 blizzard, Nathan Shellenberger, sheriff of Small Plains, and his teenage sons, Rex and Patrick, discover the naked frozen body of a beautiful teenage girl. Later, Nathan and Dr. Quentin "Doc" Reynolds bash the girl's face to an unrecognizable pulp, since they know who she is and fear that either Patrick or Rex's best friend, 17-year-old Mitch Newquist, is her killer. Witnessing this terrible scene is Mitch, hidden in Doc's home office supply closet where he's gone for a condom to use with Abby, Doc's 16-year-old daughter. Mitch's father, a judge, forces Mitch to leave town after the boy admits what he saw. In 2004, Abby and Rex-now the sheriff-find another blizzard victim, Mitch's mother, dead near the marker commemorating the still-unidentified "virgin." Readers may wish the author supplied more detail about the dead girl's background, but some cleverly planted surprises and the convincing portrait of smalltown life make this a memorable read. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Cold case, indeed: a blizzard with too many parallels to a long-ago storm shocks 33-year-old Abby Reynolds into unraveling the mystery behind a 17-year-old homicide. The unidentified young woman found bloodied and naked in the snow has literally haunted the small Kansas town ever since, her unmarked grave emitting a miraculous glow. The secret begins to peel away when Abby realizes that the stories told about that night don't quite ring true. As she asks the people she loves to return to that time in 1987, Abby fears the murderer might be staring her in the face. Pickard's careful plotting builds slowly toward a climax, with the weather contributing to a sense of foreboding. Using flashbacks and multiple viewpoints, she provides an absorbing tale of love and deceit. This very readable standalone suspense novel, the first by popular mystery series author Pickard (Jenny Cain, Marie Lightfoot), will appeal to those who relished Martha Grimes's Hotel Paradise. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/06.]-Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Cty. Lib., CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Accomplished mystery writer Pickard (The Truth Hurts, 2002, etc.) skillfully exposes insidious elements in a small town. Two smitten teenagers in Small Plains, Kan., contemplate making love for the first time. Sent downstairs by girlfriend Abby Reynolds to fetch condoms from her doctor father's supply cabinet, Mitch Newquist instead secretly witnesses the brutal disfigurement of a dead girl's corpse by the respectable Dr. Reynolds. Mitch recognizes the girl as a local maid from another town. Being an honorable boy bound for college, he discloses what he has seen to his own father, the town judge. To the boy's amazement and growing bitterness, his parents cover up the incident, seeming to believe Dr. Reynold's lies about it, and send Mitch away the very next morning. Seventeen years later, Abby still lives in Small Plains and owns a tree service. Mitch's mother, Nadine, who suffers from Alzheimer's, dies of exposure in a snowstorm after running out in her nightgown to visit the grave of the maid who died so mysteriously. Locals call this unknown girl the Virgin of Small Plains, and her grave has become a shrine, attracting people from all over who believe in miraculous healing. The novel moves back and forth in time, from its present in 2004 to the definitive events of 17 years before. Among the players in the original drama who must now confront the damage it inflicted are the town sheriff and his two boys, who found the girl in the snow (they denied knowing her, although both boys were in love with her); and Abby and Mitch, torn from each other in the heat of young love. Pickard demonstrates an effective restraint with the material, so that when Mitch returns to the town for a reckoning,the shame of the town fathers leads to a satisfying denouement. A quietly fashioned, credible tale about the loss of innocence.
Engrossing . . . beautifully written and carefully crafted . . . [a] work that explores the healing power of truth.”—The Boston Globe
“Nancy Pickard . . . has evolved into a writer of substantial literary power. . . . [She] has fashioned a novel that accurately reflects the secrets and silences locked deep within the hearts of all small-town Midwesterners.”—The Denver Post
“Tantalizing . . . Pickard writes with insight and compassion about an unresolved crime that continues to haunt a farming community.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A class act . . . Pickard has a talent for adding depth to a story that conveys a sense of place and history.”—Orlando Sentinel
“Crisply written, this new novel about loss of faith, trust, and innocence is utterly absorbing.”—Tucson Citizen
Sometimes restraint is the best way to convey strong emotion. When Kymberly Dakin exercises restraint, her narration serves this story beautifully. Unfortunately, she occasionally slips into melodramatic tones that detract from the listening experience. Nevertheless, the strength of this intricately plotted mystery is enough to overcome a less than perfect delivery. Prominent citizens of a small Kansas town have covered up a horrific murder for 17 years. The murdered girl becomes a legend--a ghostly virgin with healing powers. When an exiled son returns home to seek revenge, layers of lies are peeled away, exposing a chilling truth. Unrequited romance adds to the tension and pleasure. E.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169631555 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 07/15/2008 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
January 23, 2004
Abby Reynolds braked her truck on the icy highway, startled by what she imagined she saw off to the side of the road. That can’t be, she thought, as she squinted into the snow, trying to see more clearly. When the wind blew an opening in the blizzard, Abby realized that it was not a hallucination. It was not an impossible illusion sketched on the early morning air by the gusting snow. It was . . . good grief! . . . it was Nadine Newquist in a bathrobe, surrounded by swirling white, struggling through drifts on the old cemetery road, as if she were determined to visit a particular grave on this particular morning.
My God! It was Nadine: the judge’s wife, Mitch’s mom, Abby’s own late mother’s lifelong friend. It really was Nadine, a woman who was sixty-three years old and speeding toward early Alzheimer’s at about the same rate that Abby’s pickup truck was sliding sideways on Highway 177.
What the hell was Nadine doing out there?
She was all by herself, in a bathrobe, for God’s sake, in a blizzard . . .
Abby pumped her brakes with a light touch of her foot, didn’t slam on them like a fool, but her truck started to spin anyway, going round and round on the two-lane blacktop like a two-ton skater on ice.
She let her steering wheel alone, waiting for it to stop spinning before she touched it again. Coffee sloshed out of her lidless thermal cup in its holder by her knee; the smell of it filled the cab of her truck. She could still taste her last sip of it, along with the fruit and cereal she’d had for breakfast—all of which was now threatening to come back up her throat.
With a shudder, the truck came out of the spin and started slid- ing sideways again, skidding in a long diagonal across the yellow line into the eastbound lane. A heavy drift of snow slowed it down and changed the direction of the slide, until it was going backward. The skid went on and on, picking up speed as it backed into the crest of a rise, then dropped down again, taking the bottom of Abby’s stomach with it. And still the truck stayed on the pavement, hemmed in by snow, avoiding the shoulders, the deep culverts, the barbed wire fencing beyond. People thought Kansas was all flat, but it wasn’t, and especially not in the heart of the Flint Hills. The roads in this part of the state were long and straight, but they soared up and plunged down like curved ribbons of hard taffy.
Abby felt a wild hopeful moment of wondering if her truck could somehow manage to slide its way safely all the way back into town on the wrong side of the road. That would be a miracle. As she sat helplessly moving back the way she’d come, like a passenger on a roller coaster in reverse, she looked up the highway to the west, hoping not to see headlights coming at her. That way looked clear. In this strange, slow motion, made to feel even more eerie and timeless in the swirling snow, she felt as if she had all the time in the world before whatever was going to happen in the next few moments happened. She felt strangely calm, even curious about the possibility of crashing, but she didn’t feel calm about Nadine out there in the snow.
She grabbed her cell phone from the seat beside her.
In the uncanny suspension of time, as her truck drew two long parallel lines in the snow on the highway, Abby realized she might be able to get out of her seat belt, throw open her door, and dive out. But if she did, what if her cell phone broke in her fall, or she hurt herself too badly to call for help? Then nobody would know about Nadine. Mitch’s mom could fall out there in the cemetery, be covered by snow, she could die . . .
If I don’t jump, I’ll crash with the truck.
Nadine . . .
Heart pounding, stomach queasy, no longer feeling calm about anything, Abby gave up the idea of trying to jump to save herself. Instead, she punched in the single digit that called the Sheriff’s cell phone. It was on auto-dial, because Rex Shellenberger was as long and close a friend to her as Nadine had been to both of their mothers, as close as Mitch had been to Rex and Abby, once upon a happy time, a long time ago.
“Sheriff Shellenberger,” he said, calm as toast. But it was his recorded message. It went straight from those two words to the beep, wasting no time for people in emergencies.
“Rex! It’s Abby! Nadine Newquist is wandering in the snow in the cemetery. Come help me get her out of there and take her home!”
She felt the truck veer left, and then felt it in her back and bottom first as the ride got rough and the rear tires slid onto gravel underneath snow.
Her roller-coaster ride, her trip back through time, was almost over.
Nobody would believe she had traveled so far on ice without crashing, Abby thought as the ride got rougher.
Panicked thoughts flashed through her brain, images without words. Should she call Nadine’s husband, Tom? No, the judge was a notoriously bad driver in the best of weather, and a veritable menace at the first hint of moisture on the roads. Everybody knew that. Nobody with any sense ever consented to step into a car if Judge Tom Newquist was driving it, especially if it was raining, snowing, or sleeting. She’d only get him—or somebody else—killed if she called him out in this storm.
Frightened, Abby looked out the windshield just before it tilted up toward the sky.
In that split second, she glimpsed Mitch’s mom again. Nadine’s bathrobe was a tiny slash of deep rose on white, a hothouse flower inexplicably set outside on a winter’s day. Abby knew the robe was expensive, soft and silky to the touch. She’d seen Nadine wearing it a lot lately, because she insisted on spending her days and nights in lingerie. It hardly mattered, since she didn’t seem to be able to distinguish night from day anymore. When the judge or the nursing attendants he hired to watch her tried to get her into other clothes, she fought them. Abby knew the robe was made of thin material. The body under it was also thin, with hardly an ounce of fat to protect Nadine from the fierce cold that wrapped around her now.
At sixty miles an hour, Abby’s truck hit the far side of the cement culvert with a crash that telescoped the exhaust pipes, flattened half of the metal bed, tore through the transmission, ripped out the gears, and shut the engine off. It was a ten-year-old truck with no air bags. Her seat belt saved her from being thrown into her windshield, but not from being slammed sideways into the window.
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