Former headmaster of an elite upstate New York boarding school,
Maggie Detweiler has been called to evaluate the wavering
Rye Manor
School for Girls in Connecticut. The new headmaster seems
uncannily
inexperienced to bring Rye out of it's wallowing, and the
quaint small
town it's in would be devastated by it's closing. At a
welcome reception
to introduce Maggie to the staff, she meets beloved art
history teacher
Florence Meagher, who suffers from what multiple people call
"the
affliction"—she simply can't, or won't, stop talking. The
next day,
Florence doesn't come to work, and is reported missing by
her annoyed
rather than concerned husband.
Maggie immediately feels like things
aren't quite what they seem, and when Florence's body
surfaces the
next day floating in the school pool, she starts an additional
investigation into what is really going on. Calling in her
socialite best
friend Hope Babbin, the two amateur sleuths get down to
business to
find out if this was a typical marital murder, or something
else involving
the school. Was it really her husband, who eventually admits
his
marriage wasn't ideal? Or did the school treasurer have
something to
hide that Florence discovered? Or could the students be
behind it all?
As Maggie and Hope uncover more and more clues, the final
answer is
not what they ever expected...
An entertaining and quick mystery! THE AFFLICTION by Beth
Gutcheson keeps readers interested with it's vast cast of
characters,
and Maggie and Hope at the center of it all. Slightly
far-fetched that
two amateur detectives got away with as much as they did, it
was still
an engaging story, with two women at its heart, trying to
find justice for
someone wrongly killed. The strong female friendship will
keep readers
going; when Maggie and Beth are on the page together, they
are so
much fun, even with the murderous plot. Between witty
banter, they
feed off of one another and come to startling conclusions
that move
the mystery further along.
There were a few too many characters in the
book whose stories don't come to a completely satisfying
endings, but
they do have important parts within the overall mystery of
the book.
Additionally, the actual "affliction" came across as just an
annoying
problem the poor murdered woman suffered from, rather than
something that constituted it being the title of the book.
Reminiscent of
MURDER SHE WROTE, THE AFFLICTION is an appealing cozy
mystery with
dark social commentary mixed in, and an astonishing end.
Recommended for mystery fans.
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?
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy