Finding herself alone with her son after her husband leaves her for another woman, Ruth Willmarth becomes involved in a murder investigation in rural Vermont

Mad Season

Literature & Fiction

Wright, Nancy Means

United States

St Martins Pr

Divorcee Fay Hubbard joins forces with her neighbor Ruth Willmark to investigate a murder in their small Vermont town after a mysterious ring turns up attached to a lone finger bone, a discovery that threatens to reveal long-hidden secrets from the past. By the author of The Mad Season.

Harvest of Bones (Mysteries Featuring Ruth Willmarth)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Minotaur Books

Moira Earthrowls, a Vermont orchard owner, desperately needs the help of her mystery-solving neighbor, farmer Ruth Willmarth, when a series of problems, including poisoned fruit, threats from a local cult, and vandalized trees, strike her farm.

Poison Apples

Donna Woodleaf-LeBlanc and Emily Willmarth, both eighteen and in their first year of college, have looked down their noses at college football games and frat parties. So Gwen Woodleaf is surprised when her daughter announces that a frat party will keep them up late that evening. "The school is banning men-only fraternities next term," Donna explains, "so it's the last chance to get the experience of it."The "experience," however, turns out to be a great deal more than the young women bargained for: the youth who drives Donna home on his motorcycle is found dead on the Woodleaf-LeBlancs' grounds the next morning. It is unclear how the young man, who had more than his share of alcohol the night before, died, and the police are asking questions.To some of the local people, the family is suspect to start with. Russell, Donna's father, is part Abenaki and an actor who gets himself up in full Native American regalia and plays an eighteenth-century brave in frequent Revolutionary War reenactments. His wife, Gwen, has inherited Woodleaf Apiaries from her beekeeper father-- at least two hundred hives scattered about the New England countryside, requiring skill and attention if the honey crop is to bring in any money. Gwen is also the subject of gossip because she grows marijuana and belladonna for medicinal purposes.Shep Noble's death begins to seem more and more like murder than accident, and his death and the LeBlancs' "differentness" incite anonymous threats and harassment from local troublemakers who make Donna's life miserable.Desperate, she turns to a neighbor, and Emily's mother, Ruth Willmarth, as so many others of the community have done in the past. Ruth, abandoned by her husband, is struggling to raise their children and keep her farm going with little help and even less income. But that doesn't stop her from doing what she can to comfort Donna. She urges her persistent suitor, Colm Hanna, a funeral director and part-time police officer, to go more deeply into the mystery of Shep's death than his police colleagues are doing.Meanwhile, Donna is researching a paper for her sociology class, weaving it around the story of her Vermont family, with its Native American and French Canadian roots. But tragedy dogs her when her sociology professor is strangled. As Ruth and Colm try to unravel the tangle of the two deaths, it becomes clear that both deaths, as well as the family history Donna is digging into, are coming together in a clashing climax that will leave none of the players unchanged.

Stolen Honey

Mad Cow Nightmare

Ruth Willmarth wakes one hot July night to a cacophony of drums, high-pitched warbling, and the bellowing of cows. Her lover, Colm, has invited his distant cousin, Darren, to fill in as herdsman on her Vermont farm, and Darren has brought along his extended family of volatile Irish Travellers. Among the crowd are Darren's estranged brother, Ritchie, and his beautiful but exhausted girlfriend, Nola, who has recently undergone brain surgery in a Toronto hospital. Now the hospital is seeking recent patients who might be infected with the human form of the fatal Mad Cow. Almost as soon as they arrive, Ritchie is found in the local swamp, strangled with the reins of a neighbor's "darling" Morgan mare, and Nola disappears, prompting a widespread search for a "plague-carrying female killer." The troubles pile up on Ruth's barn step when calves on the New York farm where Darren, Ritchie, and Nola worked contract Mad Cow. The Feds want to slaughter the two calves Ruth bought from that farmer and quarantine, without proof, her whole beloved herd. Harassed by reporters, the Feds, and paranoid townsfolk, Ruth is trying to hold herself together. But when her kooky sister-in-law arrives with a van load of women to reenact an ancient Black Plague dance and demand that the "gypsies" leave, she breaks down. It takes a fire in the Travellers' trailer to bring her out of her funk. Desperate to find Nola and ascertain her state of health, Ruth springs into action. Told in a variety of offbeat voices, and with a vibrant sense of place, Mad Cow Nightmare is the sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, but always suspenseful story of a fiercely independent woman who throws herself against hate and superstition in order to save farm, family, and a dying way of life.

Vermont dairy farmer Ruth encounters beekeepers, Abenaki Indians, a strangled professor, and dark secrets from the past in this hair-raising tale. "Penetrating, economical, and generously plotted. "-Kirkus Reviews" The story is intricate and fascinating, the solution a delight, and the stark Vermont backdrop brilliantly portrayed." -Romantic Times

iUniverse

Literary

Thorndike Pr

The warm and witty tale of a family who came home to Vermont and made a life--along with a living.

Make your own change

History

Americas

Down East Books

Rebel with Many Causes Dismissed from her governess post in Ireland, Mary Wollstonecraft lands on her feet in London. After the 1792 publication of her ground-breaking Vindication of the Rights of Woman she gains entrÃ©e to a circle of celebrated artists and intellectuals. But Mary falls into obsession and infatuation with painter Henry Fuseli after his hauntingly erotic masterpiece The Nightmare is stolen. When a young artist is wrongfully accused and imprisoned, and a bluestocking friend is strangled, Mary's passionate nature does not allow her to stand aside. Her quest for the truth will lead her into personal notoriety, a trip to a madhouse, and confrontations with more than one possible murderer.

The Nightmare: A Mystery with Mary Wollstonecraft

Perseverance Press

Zoe Elwood's know-it-all brother Kelby has started the Northern Spy Club-named after a variety of apple in their father's Vermont orchard-and declared himself President. To get into the club one must walk a narrow beam over rusted farm machinery, and solve a crime. In this case, the crime involves Alice Fairweather's grandmother, who has expired after eating a bowl of pea soup. According to Kelby, the elderly Bagley Sisters across the street who made the soup must be guilty. But Zoe is fond of the Bagley Sisters and asks her friend Spencer to help her uncover clues that will prove the sisters are innocent. Solving the crime and walking the high beam in the barn are something that Zoe is determined to prove a girl can do just as well as a boy.

The Pea Soup Poisonings

Children's Books

Mysteries & Detectives

Hilliard & Harris Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wright, Nancy Means. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wright, Nancy Means

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wright, Nancy Means. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mad Season

Harvest of Bones (Mysteries Featuring Ruth Willmarth)

Poison Apples

Stolen Honey

Mad Cow Nightmare

Stolen Honey

Stolen Honey

Make your own change

The Nightmare: A Mystery with Mary Wollstonecraft

The Pea Soup Poisonings