Harvest of Bones

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 3. AUG. 1998

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.