Overview
THE WILD AND BEAUTIFUL SEA ISLAND WAS A PLACE TO DIE FOR.AND KILL FOR.
Of all the aristocratic dynasties that once reigned over Georgia’s Cumberland Island, only the Hill family survives. Now they too are threatened. Charlotte, the family matriarch, has died suddenly and mysteriously, leaving her sister-in-law, Hannah, to protect the unspoiled paradise Charlotte had so passionately loved. But Hannah’s own health is precarious, developers are closing in, and the younger generation—charming cousins Mary, Leah, and Johanna—don’t seem to share the family devotion to the land. Even the island folk, some as venomous as Cumberland diamondbacks, are closely watching Hannah’s struggle to breathe. Looks like all eyes are on the Hill house. And someone covets what they see.
Archivist and family friend Ben Reese knows, however, that appearances can be deceiving. And murder can seem so easy and so right when it gets you what you desperately crave.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
In her fourth Ben Reese mystery, Edgar nominee Wright takes Ben away from England and Scotland, the settings for the last two books, and deposits him on unspoiled Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia. It's 1960, and Cumberland faces an uncertain future as developers and park service scouts try to convince key families to sell their property. Ben stumbles on the murder of a bedridden MS patient-a murder that initially looks like a natural death by pneumonia. But Ben (who learned all about biological agents in the third book, Pursuit and Persuasion) is suspicious, since the victim left behind a surprising will deeding the island to her niece rather than her avaricious daughter. As Ben sifts through numerous red herrings, Wright tackles strong ethical issues such as euthanasia, ecological responsibility and vengeance, offering a religious message that's wonderfully subtle and thoughtful. She also reveals something more of Ben's character; we discover what he did in WWII that still gives him nightmares, and learn of the existence of a wartime nemesis whom Ben believes should be brought to justice. Wright's writing style can be abrupt, particularly when things get exciting. She leans heavily on choppy sentences and tends to begin far too many of them with conjunctions. However, this otherwise impeccable mystery manages to take conventional plot devices-an isolated island, a startling will, a generations-old family feud-and make them fresh. (Jan.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Everyone wants a piece of beautiful Cumberland Island. The Feds long to turn it into a national park, bringing in 2,000 visitors a day to gawk at the egrets, turtles, deer, wild horses, and pigs. The developers want to toss up condos where the wealthy can overlook water and wildlife. Standing-or, rather, lying-in their way is bedridden MS sufferer Hannah Hill, who owns 90% of the island and wants to keep it a nature sanctuary. She begs her nephew, Alderton University archivist Ben Reese (Pursuit and Persuasion, etc., not reviewed), to help, but before he makes more than a phone call, someone sprays Streptococcus pneumoniae around Hannah's bed, then smothers her. Her loving surrogate daughter Johanna, a neophyte opera singer, is distraught, which is more than can be said for her daughter Mary, who thinks she'll inherit, marry, and enjoy big-city life ever after, and her plain, pudgy, untalented niece Leah, who's always been jealous of Johanna. Estelle, the family cook, once a surgical nurse under another name, is just thankful Miz Hannah is now out of her MS misery. By the time Ben sorts through the family connections, evaluates an art collection for his university, and reconnects with his best friend's widow, the killer is confronting Johanna at the ruin of the old family mansion.Too many interior monologues take too many characters' emotional temperatures, and the killer's descent into madness is way over the top. But readers will fall in love with the beauty of Cumberland.