The Cemetery Yew

I love Martha's Vineyard, with its quiet lanes and lovely gingerbread cottages. I was thrilled to find a mystery series set on this lovely location. I was even more happy that the lead character - Victoria - was a 92 year old island resident. It offered a lot of texture, background and wisdom to come out of the main character. The story is a nicely complex one. There's an empty coffin which, it turns out, has millions of dollars of jewels hidden in it. There are numerous people who are after the jewels and perhaps killing each other off as well. You have the typical small island politics, with people fighting with each other, attracted to each other, and generally leading mixed-up lives. You also get the quiet, non-tourist-season glimpses into the island in its "natural state". I love how you really get a sense of what an island is like off season. The residents all know each other. They know the back routes into the dump when the front one is closed. They plow through the snow, they walk down the quiet lanes. They're lonely and friendly and patient and tense. There are subtle clues slipped into conversation that you might miss or might pick up on. There are literary references that, if you catch them, give you a leg up as well. I do have a complaint about Victoria. I really like characters with flaws and with a well rounded aspect to them. So I appreciate that Victoria shouldn't be perfect. However, she appears to have completely NO common sense at times. It starts with her planning on sending cash in to a "you've won $10 million dollars" sort of sweepstakes offering. It always drives me insane that people in our modern day and age fall for the Nigerian Money Scam, so to have a lead character in essence doing this in the story bugged me. This happens right in the beginning of the book so it was very off-setting. Victoria goes on to do several other things like this, including inviting a supposed murderer to her house and just chatting with him, with nobody else around, completely unprotected - and bringing up key topics with him. You could say "Oh, but she comes from a gentler time when everyone was friendly." Surely she didn't get to age 92 without learning to take care of herself. It's like this aspect of her comes and goes to fit the plot. Sometimes she is quite wise and sharp. At other times - when the plot calls for it - her brain turns to mush and she is completely blind to the dangers. It was very frustrating to me. Still, I did enjoy the book and I told myself that "her brain had temporarily become feeble because of her age" to get myself past those moments. It did reduce my enjoyment of the book, because the whole reason I was enjoying the 92 yr old character was that she WAS portrayed as able to live on her own and be a productive member of the community. To have to reduce her to "having flashes of great stupidity" because of her age upset me. If at least *reasons* for her lapses could be put into future books, I think I would en

This wonderful book is set on Martha's Vineyard. Victoria Trumbull is a 92-year-old police deputy. The police chief is new to the island and knows that Victoria knows everyone and can be invaluable in an investigation. When a casket isn't where it's supposed to be in the cemetery, Victoria is the one to notice something wrong to help them locate it. Her friend Howland's cousin Dahlia is coming to the island. She has cancer and will be getting treatments at the local hospital. Victoria agrees to let Dahlia and her bird Bacchus rent a room until Howland can get his home presentable for Dahlia. Soon the hearse driver disappears, there is a string of suspicious deaths, as well as the coffin goes missing after it's dug up. Victoria begins to put the pieces together, but can she do so before the rest of the players are dead? I really enjoyed this book. Victoria is such a wonderful character. She may be old, but her mind is very sound. I like that this book was told from her persepective. Martha's Vineyard is a favorite setting of mine. I always feel like I'm on vacation when I read a book set there. I highly recommend this book and series. [...]

In this third book in the Victoria Trumbull series, we see the 92-year-old sleuth trying to solve several murders on Martha's Vineyard. Moving around a little slower than she would like, Victoria tries to connect a series of events that confuse law enforcement on the island. An empty casket that had been buried for 10 years, a fire at the dump, a missing hearse driver, and a boarder with a barking bird keep Victoria hopping. Will she ever be able to find the $10 million in missing jewels that are reportedly on the island? This book started off a bit confusing for me, but liking the other books in the series, I did finish it. About half way through, things started to fall into place, and I was kept guessing as to who the murderer might be. The ending was surprising, and paved the way for some of the characters from "off-island" to return. This series is much different from another cozy series by Philip Craig also set on Martha's Vineyard. Both are good reads, and wonderful additions to the cozy genre. The first book in this series is titled "Deadly Nightshade". Enjoy!