Indian Pipes (A Victoria Trumbull Mystery)

Excellent summer read for the beach or hammock. Characters are lively and believable, and keeps you wondering who the murderer was till the very end of the story.

92 year old Victoria Trumbull is out for a walk with her granddaughter when she spots a body. The police say the death was caused by an accidental fall off a cliff, but Victoria thinks someone murdered her neighbor. She is convinced the murder has something to do with the debate over whether or not to have a casino on Martha's Vineyard, where she lives. When a friend disappears and is presumed dead after a house fire, Victoria is determined to find out the truth. Add in a motorcycle rally, a stolen computer, and a kidnapping and Victoria is one busy lady. "Indian Pipes" is an enjoyable mystery. Victoria is a great creation - at 92 she is sharp as a tack, energetic, stubborn, and a deputy assisting police chief Casey O'Neill. Her granddaughter Elizabeth is also well written - recovering from a divorce, she would like her grandmother to be more politically correct, not realizing how open to today's world Victoria really is. Author Cynthia Riggs does a good job of capturing life on Martha's Vineyard and the gambling plot line is a timely one as casinos are indeed being talked about in Massachusetts. The mystery aspects are nicely done and there are plenty of suspects to keep readers guessing who the murderer is. Besides the murder, there are also several smaller mysteries in the book that are all well developed and Riggs nicely takes her time in letting readers know the solution. "Indian Pipes" is a nice cozy mystery.

In West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard, ninety-two years old Deputy Sheriff Victoria Trumbull and her granddaughter Elizabeth are walking together when they see a person apparently fall from a nearby cliff. The nonagenarian soon learns the corpse is that of her reclusive neighbor Jube Burkhardt. The crime scene and what Victoria and Elizabeth observed even from a distance lend credence to Jube accidentally falling off a nearby ledge. Victoria learns that Jube, an engineer, attended a meeting called by the local Wampanoag tribal council to discuss soil testing in support of their proposed casino. Though she vowed to stay out of the casino controversy, she finds the link to Jube too tempting to ignore as the residents of West Tisbrury are divided over the gambling project. Motivated to uncover the identity of the killer, Victoria soon finds a second dead person and an arson set fire. As she gets closer to the truth, the culprit tries to silence the persistent cop. As with the five previous delightful Martha's Vineyard Mystery, INDIAN PIPES is a superb whodunit starring a feisty protagonist, who though geriatric has not lost much of her step (just ask her granddaughter). The story line is exciting as a reluctant Victoria investigates the death and more. The story is terrific and the heroine wonderful and as always, Cynthia Riggs provides an eccentric support cast, this time a motorcycle biking professor and his hogs that turns the tale into a colorful winner. Harriet Klausner