"The girls are back in this heart pounding follow-up!"
Reviewed by Patti Loveday
Posted March 7, 2018
Mystery Woman Sleuth
Beth Gutcheon's second book in the Maggie Detweiler and Hope
Babbin series is titled THE AFFLICTION. A thrill
seeking
and suspenseful read that is the perfect follow up novel to
DEATH AT BREAKFAST. The cover does not do justice for this
heart pounding mystery! Maggie and Hope are back at it, but this time you get to know
them better than ever with a glimpse of their pasts as they try
to solve yet another mystery. Maggie is back on familiar
ground at a private girls' school in the suburbs of
Connecticut. Does this give her an advantage or will it make it
easy for her to become attached? While the main points of view
come from Maggie and Hope, you still have a long list of
characters that are inspiring and charming to follow along.
Each character helps to add that extra touch to the overall
eeriness of the story, while the setting is the perfect
backdrop to send chills up your spine. When secrets that should remain silent come to light, you learn
more about the supporting characters and the two girls as well.
This fast-paced drama filled read will have you second guessing
with each page all while sitting on the edge of your seat. When
secrets to the mystery are revealed will things change for the
better? Or will these secrets shatter the lives of everyone
involved? The ending is perfect for the overall plot but there are a few
missing pieces to the puzzle. This only makes you want to read
the next book in the Maggie Detweiler and Hope
Babbin series as soon as possible. Gutcheon has
created a thrilling
story with a setting that helps add the spooky and mysterious
suspense that makes is a must read.
SUMMARY
The New York Times bestselling author of More
Than You Know, Leeway Cottage, and Death at
Breakfast delivers the second installment in her clever
romp of a mystery series combining social comedy and
dark-hearted murder—a novel set at a girls’ boarding school
in a picturesque Hudson River town with more than its share
of secrets. Since retiring as head of a famous New York City private
school, Maggie Detweiler is busier than ever. Chairing a
team to evaluate the faltering Rye Manor School for girls,
she will determine whether, in spite of its fabled past, the
school has a future at all. With so much on the line for so
many, tensions on campus are at an excruciating pitch, and
Maggie expects to be as welcome as a case of Ebola virus. At a reception for the faculty and trustees to "welcome"
Maggie’s team, no one seems more keen for all to go well
than Florence Meagher, a star teacher who is loved and
respected in spite of her affliction—that she can never stop
talking. Florence is one of those dedicated teachers for whom the
school is her life, and yet the next morning, when Maggie
arrives to observe her teaching, Florence is missing.
Florence’s husband, Ray, an auxiliary policeman in the
village, seems more annoyed than alarmed at her
disappearance. But Florence’s sister is distraught. There
have been tensions in the marriage, and at their last visit,
Florence had warned, "If anything happens to me, don’t
assume it’s an accident." Two days later, Florence’s body is found in the campus
swimming pool. Maggie is asked to stay on to coach the very young and
inexperienced head of Rye Manor through the crisis. Maggie
obviously knows schools, but she also knows something about
investigating murder, having solved a mysterious death in
Maine the previous year when the police went after the wrong
suspect. She is soon joined by her madcap socialite friend
Hope, who is jonesing for an excuse to ditch her book club
anyway, before she has to actually read Silas Marner. What on earth is going on in this idyllic town? Is this a
run-of-the-mill marital murder? Or does it have something to
do with the school board treasurer’s real estate schemes?
And what is up with the vicious cyber-bullying that’s
unsettled everyone, or with the disturbed teenaged boy whom
Florence had made a pet of? And is it possible that someone
killed Florence just so she’d finally shut up?
What do you think about this review?
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