Agony Hill
A Mystery
-
-
4.6 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Set in rural Vermont in the volatile 1960s, Agony Hill is the first novel in a new historical series full of vivid New England atmosphere and the deeply drawn characters that are Sarah Stewart Taylor's trademark.
In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren's new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany.
Warren has barely unpacked when he's called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, with the door barred from the inside, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany—from Weber’s enigmatic wife to Warren's neighbor, widow and amateur detective Alice Bellows — clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them. As he gets to know his new home and grapples with the tragedy that brought him there, Warren is drawn to the people and traditions of small town Vermont, even as he finds darkness amidst the beauty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A New England detective investigates a farmer's death while concealing his own dark past in this slow-burning series launch from Stewart Taylor (the Maggie D'Arcy Mysteries). In the 1960s, Franklin Warren leaves Boston for sleepy Bethany, Vt., to take a job as a state detective. His first case is the death of Hugh Weber, an overbearing "back-to-the-lander" who came to Bethany from New York City 15 years earlier. Warren's colleagues think Weber died by suicide, but the detective suspects it might be murder, owing to how unpopular he was in town. While interviewing Weber's many enemies, Warren untangles the private, interconnected dramas of Bethany's citizens, and broods on the tragedy that moved him to leave Boston. Meanwhile, widow Alice Bellows, a former spy, keeps her eye on Warren while investigating the theft of bullets from Bethany's general store. Stewart Taylor nails the rural setting, and Warren is a promising lead, but some readers may grow frustrated as the narrative detours into the backstories of its large cast. Still, there's enough intrigue here to keep patient mystery lovers on board for the sequel.
