The Bridled Groom - Hardcover

Borthwick, J. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312104359 ISBN 13: 9780312104351

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1994

Synopsis

After courting each other through J. S. Borthwick's five previous mysteries, English teacher Sarah Deane and internist Alex McKenzie are finally planning a wedding: their own. It should be idyllic, culminating in a reception at the beautiful Maine farm owned by Sarah's aunt Julia Clancy. But not even her own impending nuptials can keep Sarah from probing a local mystery.
This time the troubles strike literally close to home. Aunt Julia receives a series of sinister nursery rhymes telling her to leave High Hope Farm, and then the disquieting incidents begin: A groom falls through the hayloft; the farmhouse is splattered by buckshot; two stable helpers vanish into thin air; and a psychic librarian goes about the neighborhood proclaiming ruin and blood on the new moon.
The reception does go forward as planned, but the happy event is marred by the morning-after discovery of a corpse in the stable. Sarah and Alex are brought home from their honeymoon as witnesses: They just may have seen the killer dance at their wedding. Obviously, the newlyweds have no time to settle into married life. Murder comes first, and they must try to solve the crimes before a horse show offers the perfect opportunity to destroy High Hope Farm for good.

About this title

About the Author:

Along with her horse, Conky Noodle, J.S. BORTHWICK lives on the Maine coast, where most of her books are set.

From Publishers Weekly:

In their sixth engaging and literate adventure, following Dude on Arrival , Sarah Deane, English teacher and Ph.D. candidate at Maine's Bowmouth College, and her fiance, physician Alex McKenzie, are distracted from wedding plans when Sarah's widowed Aunt Julia begins receiving threatening notes. Crusty, independent Julia, owner of High Hope Farm, is initially untroubled by the hand-delivered nursery rhymes rewritten with unnerving twists, e.g., "Julia Clancy sat on a wall / Julia Clancy had a great fall." The list of possible culprits includes neighbor Colonel Harvey Dodge, a persistent suitor who thinks he and Julia should marry, blending their farms and their lives; librarian Tilly Martin, who says that she has learned from the stars and runes that each person in the area should take over a neighbor's property; a mining company that has shown a recent interest in local mineral rights. The threats continue, leading finally, during Sarah and Alex's reception at Julia's beloved horse farm, to a suspicious death. In this character-oriented mystery, Borthwick makes the suspects, Julia's neighbors and the mining company seem largely, though not entirely, innocent, giving Sarah and Alex a challenging puzzle to solve--as though pulling off a wedding were a piece of cake.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0312104359
• ISBN 13: 9780312104351
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324