Detective Frank Warren is called to an apparently accidental shooting at a Vermont country club. Deer season is open this November 1965. Most of the sombre men gathered at the club admit they get more out of the camaraderie than the hunting. But someone is dead at HUNTERβS HEART RIDGE in Hillyer, and Frank Warren has to find out why. Hillyer doesnβt have a police station, so it is served by the one in Bethany.
Β
William Moulton lay in the trees, but his good neighbours, well-meaning, didnβt think it right to leave him there, what with animals in the woods. They brought him back to The Ridge Club. This confused the crime scene. Trooper Pinky Goodrich has a nose for clues and knows a lot about everyone, so Frank finds himself depending on the keen young man.
Β
The former CIA agent Alice Bellows sets up a dinner party for the distinguished people in the Bethany area. Sheβs been keeping an eye on the nice, quiet Russian man in the nearby cabin. Arthur Crannock, her former contact, keeps dropping in from time to time, staying out of conversations but listening hard. This evening, in the lead-up to Thanksgiving, the talk turns to the unexpected death. William Moulton was a diplomat, recently reassigned from West Germany.Β
Β
Vermont is bowled over by a snowstorm during the story, closing roads and heightening tensions. One issue is that a pregnant woman, widow Sylvie Weber, is working at the Ridge Club and clearly the snow could be a problem. Young helper Jenny Breedlove doesnβt mind; sheβs excited to be cut off with handsome Walter Goodrich, otherwise known as Deputy Pinky.Β
Β
The interpersonal contact and tensions form a large part of this historical suspense story. This is the second in the Franklin Warren and Alice Bellows Mystery series. The first book is called Agony Hill. I see a theme. HUNTERβS HEART RIDGE is involving and becomes seriously suspenseful as the group is isolated at the country club while trying to resolve the crime. The topics of the day are occasionally aired to remind us why nobody has a cellphone. Because murder is murder, and the backwoods donβt change much. The adventure could be set today with just a few alterations.
In this sequel to Taylor’s lyrical series debut, Agony Hill, Detective Frank Warren and his formerly CIA-connected neighbor Alice Bellows return to investigate the death of a diplomat.
It's November of 1965 and the second weekend of Vermont's regular deer season when Vermont State Police detective Franklin Warren is called out to what looks like an accidental shooting at The Ridge Club, an exclusive men's hunting and fishing club for congressmen, diplomats, judges, and titans of industry: a former ambassador has been shot while out hunting. With the war in Vietnam picking up speed on the other side of the world, Warren quickly realizes that many of the club’s members are powerful men who may have ulterior motives and connections in high places.
While Warren's suspicions about the club members build, his neighbor Alice Bellows is throwing a dinner party, preparing for Thanksgiving, and worrying about her pregnant friend and fellow widow, Sylvie Weber, whose due date is coming up. When Alice's old handler and friend, Arthur Crannock, unexpectedly shows up in Bethany, Alice begins to wonder whether his presence has anything to do with the death at the hunting club.
As an early season snowstorm bears down on Bethany, knocking out power and phone lines and blocking the roads, Warren and his assistant, Trooper Pinky Goodrich, are trapped at the Ridge Club, likely along with a killer, and Alice, increasingly fearful that her past in the intelligence world is no longer in the past, will have to act fast to save Sylvie and her baby.
Sarah Stewart Taylor’s historical series combines the intricacy of a satisfying mystery with keen observation of a time and place during great transformation and upheaval.
© 2003-2026