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The Alpine Zen: An Emma Lord Mystery - Softcover

Buch 26 von 26: Emma Lord

Daheim, Mary

 
9780345535368: The Alpine Zen: An Emma Lord Mystery
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345535367 ISBN 13: 9780345535368
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The picturesque town of Alpine in the foothills of Washington state’s Cascade Mountains—home to Emma Lord and her weekly newspaper The Alpine Advocate—has long charmed and enthralled mystery lovers. Now, with The Alpine Zen, Mary Daheim has at last reached the anticipated letter of Z. Her legion of avid armchair sleuths will relish this deliciously gripping novel.
 
As an early summer heat wave beats down on Alpine, Emma and her staff are treading very lightly. For unfathomable reasons, the paper’s House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, is in a major snit, refusing to speak to her colleagues, or even her boss. So when a peculiar young woman walks in claiming her parents have been murdered, and that she’s in mortal danger, too, it fits right in with the rest of the craziness. Then, to the utter bafflement of her colleagues, Vida vanishes without a word to anyone. And just when Emma and her husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, start to unsnarl these tangles, a male body, dead too long to identify, surfaces at the town dump—making what seemed merely weird feel downright sinister. Has the hot weather driven everyone nuts, or are cold-blooded forces committing deadly misdeeds?
 
The Alpine Zen tingles with all the mystery and allure that only Mary Daheim’s brand of small-town life can provide. Gossip, love affairs, feuding, and plenty of dirty secrets make for an intriguing adventure every Alpine fan will want to read all about.

Praise for The Alpine Zen
 
“A complex plot and a cast of vivid characters will keep readers turning pages.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Lively and satisfying.”—Library Journal
 
Praise for Mary Daheim and her Emma Lord mysteries
 
“Always entertaining.”—The Seattle Times
 
“Mary Daheim writes with wit, wisdom, and a big heart. I love her books.”—Carolyn Hart
 
“Daheim writes . . . with dry wit, a butter-smooth style, and obvious wicked enjoyment.”—The Oregonian
 
“The characters are great, and the plots always attention-getting.”—King Features Syndicate
 
“Even the most seasoned mystery fans are caught off-guard by [Daheim’s] clever plot twists.”—BookLoons
 
“Witty one-liners and amusing characterizations.”—Publishers Weekly

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mary Richardson Daheim started spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982, she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than sixty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008, she was inducted into the University of Washington’s Communication Alumni Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine, which existed as a logging town from 1910 to 1929, when it was abandoned after the mill was closed. The Alpine/Emma Lord series has created interest in the site, which was named a Washington State ghost town in July 2011. An organization called the Alpine Advocates has been formed to preserve what remains of the town as a historic site.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

The month of June is unpredictable in Alpine. My House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, is not. But this spring and early summer, she’s been as changeable as the weather. Vida insists she isn’t angry with me, but her long lapses into silence are a sign that all is not well.

Sadly, I know the reason for her behavior. Vida’s embarrassed. Her adored grandson, Roger Hibbert, is serving a four-year prison term for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Or minors, in his case, having been busted for luring teenage girls into prostitution. As a sideline, he had also been dealing drugs.

Law breaking isn’t new to Roger, though the first time around Sheriff Milo Dodge went easy on the punk for Vida’s sake and because he’d ratted out our local drug dealers. However, his recent crimes were more serious. Vida was forced to remove her blinders and see Roger through realistic eyes. That, however, didn’t mean she was happy.

Neither was I, but my displeasure was with the weather. A June heat wave in our Cascade Mountains aerie is unusual. Instead of gray skies and intermittent showers, we were having bright sun and unseasonable heat.

“It’s not even ten and it’s already too warm,” Amanda Hanson griped as she brought in the morning mail. “I should write a letter to Vida’s advice column asking what she can do to fix it. What happened to our rain?”

I smiled at The Alpine Advocate’s receptionist and office manager. “We’ve had some early morning drizzle,” I pointed out. “And it’s always good to have had sun for the annual Summer Solstice festivities.”

“That was last week,” Amanda said, a hand on her bulging abdomen. “If it stays this hot and the baby doesn’t come for another couple of weeks, I may explode like a Fourth of July firecracker.”

I laughed. “My son, Adam, was born in June on the Mississippi Delta. Think humidity on top of heat. At least we’re spared that here in the Cascades.”

Amanda gazed up at my small office’s low ceiling. “I know. It can always get worse. Are you sure Alison Lindahl’s taking my place while I’m on maternity leave?”

“Yes,” I replied. “She doesn’t teach cosmetology during summer quarter at the community college. Alison came back from her Alaskan cruise Saturday. She’s spending a week with her parents in Everett, but if we need her, she can rescue us. She did a fine job when you left to fill in for the post office rush last December.”

Amanda suddenly looked dazed. “Where did this year go? So much happened in Alpine. Who says small towns are boring?”

Not me. Last June, if anyone had told me I’d be happily married for the better part of this year, I’d have reserved space for the predictor in RestHaven’s psych ward. I didn’t even know I was in love until after Thanksgiving. In fact, back then I’d never heard of RestHaven.

“Ahem.” Leo Walsh, my ad manager, stood in the doorway. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” I replied, after giving a start. “I was wool-gathering. I’ve decided that my editorial this week should rouse the citizenry to endorse Mayor Fuzzy Baugh’s plan to do away with his job and the county commissioners. As usual, everybody in Skykomish County is suffering from utter apathy. Maybe it’s the heat.”

Leo’s weathered face broke into an ironic grin. “Having spent a long weekend recently in Southern California, I feel right at home. Don’t worry, boss lady, I have no immediate plans to retire even if I did turn sixty-two in May. But I’ll go back to Santa Maria for my son’s wedding later this summer.”

“Keep saying that,” I urged. “It helps dispel my fear of Ed Bronsky wanting his old job back. How are we shaping up for ads this week?”

“Not quite the desired sixty-forty split,” Leo admitted. “But we’ve got the special Fourth of July section coming out this week, which makes up for it. How much copy have you got?”

“Enough,” I said. “The insert’s front page will be the 1917 photo of the American flag presentation to Alpine for selling the most World War One Liberty Bonds per capita of any Washington city or town. There are two versions of that picture, but we haven’t run either of them for the last five years. Our readers never get tired of seeing those shots. Maybe I can use the old-timers as the hook to inspire the locals to get off their duffs and support Fuzzy’s government-reorganization plan at the polls.”

Leo nodded. “Shame them into it. It might motivate the merchants to buy more ad space.” He glanced out into the newsroom. “The Duchess has taken off,” he went on, referring to Vida, who insisted she despised his nickname for her, though we all knew better. “Will she ever bounce back after Roger’s fall from grace?”

“She has to,” I said. “Her gloom can get contagious. Mitch already suffers from that problem.”

“Our star reporter’s been better since his wife’s emotional state stabilized,” Leo noted. The previous December, Mitch and Brenda Laskey’s son, Troy, had made his second failed escape from the Monroe Correctional Complex, some thirty-five miles west of Alpine. “Oddly enough, I’ve never heard Mitch and Vida compare notes about their jailbird offspring.”

“She’s too embarrassed,” I said. “I don’t know if Vida’s visited Roger since he was sent to the Shelton facility. It’s a three-hundred-and-fifty-mile round-trip from here.”

Leo shrugged. “Just as well. Thank God my kids managed to avoid serious trouble despite my bouts with the bottle and getting fired.”

“You turned your life around,” I asserted. “I’ll admit, when I first hired you, I had my doubts, but you did it.”

“Thanks in large part to you.” Leo glanced over his shoulder. “Here’s Mitch now. Maybe he’s got some hot news from the sheriff’s office. Later, babe.” My ad manager ambled out to greet my reporter.

Apparently, there were no headlines from Sheriff Dodge’s crew. The last I’d seen of the sheriff was the back of him going out the side door of our house carrying the garbage and cussing a lot. That was over two hours ago. It was just as well that he and I didn’t talk much in the morning. Neither of us was very sociable before we consumed large amounts of caffeine. Maybe that’s why our marriage had lasted for over four months.

By ten-thirty I’d made inroads on my weekly editorial. So far, I’d praised the grit, pride, and patriotism of Alpine’s early residents. Now I had to rally their modern-day counterparts. That task wasn’t easy. I decided I needed more coffee.

I left to seek a refill in the empty newsroom. All that remained from the Upper Crust Bakery run made by my back-shop manager, Kip MacDuff, was a bran muffin and a powdered sugar doughnut. I snatched up the latter and was biting into it when Vida entered, pushing her great-grandson, Dippy, in what looked like a stroller out of Star Wars.

To my relief, Vida was smiling. “Amy has an emergency dental appointment,” she said, referring to the youngest of her daughters and the mother of Roger. “Short notice, of course, to get a babysitter. I told her I’d be delighted to bring Dippy to work with me. Look—see how happy he is. So many teeth...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345535367
ISBN 13 
9780345535368
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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