Muletrain to Maggody
An Arly Hanks Mystery
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4.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Under the benign watch of Police Chief Arly Hanks, things are pretty quiet in the sleepy Arkansas town of Maggody these days. Not even the prospect of a historical society-funded Civil War documentary on the locally touted (albeit historically insignificant) Skirmish at Cotter's Ridge of 1863 does much to stir up the denizens of this sleepy backwoods town. What does finally get the rumor mill buzzing, however, is the revelation that two saddlebags of Confederate gold were hidden in a local cave to keep them from falling into Yankee hands. Once word gets out that the saddlebags were never recovered, almost everyone in town has a plan to get their hands on the lost gold.
Meanwhile, a colorful cast of outlanders has taken over Maggody. They include a dewy Charleston belle, a famous writer of historical romances, her ne'er-do-well son, and three dozen obsessive reenactors who have not yet acknowledged that the Civil War ended over a hundred years ago, as well as a documentary film crew and a handsome, if enigmatic, filmmaker with ties to Arly's past. Arly has more than enough on her hands trying to locate missing senior citizens and keeping the visitors from each other's throats, but when the genealogist of the Stump County Historical Society dies under questionable circumstances, and a member of the Buchanon clan is the victim of a vicious and fatal attack, Arly finds herself faced with the most baffling whodunit of her career, with a disgruntled ghost a possible prime suspect.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The blend of mayhem and mirth is as potent as ever in Hess's 14th cozy (after 2001's Maggody and the Moonbeams) centered on the backwoods town of Maggody, Ark. The Stump County Historical Society has funded a documentary film on a local Civil War battle, the Skirmish at Cotter's Ridge of 1863. No one seems all that interested until Miss Harriet Hathaway of the historical society mentions that a shipment of Confederate gold was hidden somewhere during the skirmish and hasn't been seen since. Chief of Police Arly Hanks braces herself for the antics that are sure to follow, as various Maggodians devise plans to find the gold and live a life of luxury thereafter. Dedicated reenactors begin to descend on Maggody, along with various experts involved in the documentary. Among them are a well-known writer of historical romances, her shiftless son, his sluttish fianc e, a historian who often dons the uniform of a Union general and a retired accountant with a passion for genealogical research. One dead body turns up, then another, and Arly has to sort out all the comings and goings of the suspects, and the various motives, and collar the killer before he or she strikes again. With a wit sometimes mordant, sometimes gentle, Hess mines the foibles of those obsessed with the past to offer yet another deliciously funny and deviously puzzling mystery. FYI:Hess is also the author of A Conventional Corpse (2000) and 12 other titles in her Claire Malloy series.
