Stolen Honey - Hardcover

Wright, Nancy Means

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312262450 ISBN 13: 9780312262457

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2002

Synopsis

Donna Woodleaf-LeBlanc and Emily Willmarth, both eighteen and in their first year of college, have looked down their noses at college football games and frat parties. So Gwen Woodleaf is surprised when her daughter announces that a frat party will keep them up late that evening. "The school is banning men-only fraternities next term," Donna explains, "so it's the last chance to get the experience of it."

The "experience," however, turns out to be a great deal more than the young women bargained for: the youth who drives Donna home on his motorcycle is found dead on the Woodleaf-LeBlancs' grounds the next morning. It is unclear how the young man, who had more than his share of alcohol the night before, died, and the police are asking questions.

To some of the local people, the family is suspect to start with. Russell, Donna's father, is part Abenaki and an actor who gets himself up in full Native American regalia and plays an eighteenth-century brave in frequent Revolutionary War reenactments. His wife, Gwen, has inherited Woodleaf Apiaries from her beekeeper father-- at least two hundred hives scattered about the New England countryside, requiring skill and attention if the honey crop is to bring in any money. Gwen is also the subject of gossip because she grows marijuana and belladonna for medicinal purposes.

Shep Noble's death begins to seem more and more like murder than accident, and his death and the LeBlancs' "differentness" incite anonymous threats and harassment from local troublemakers who make Donna's life miserable.

Desperate, she turns to a neighbor, and Emily's mother, Ruth Willmarth, as so many others of the community have done in the past. Ruth, abandoned by her husband, is struggling to raise their children and keep her farm going with little help and even less income. But that doesn't stop her from doing what she can to comfort Donna. She urges her persistent suitor, Colm Hanna, a funeral director and part-time police officer, to go more deeply into the mystery of Shep's death than his police colleagues are doing.

Meanwhile, Donna is researching a paper for her sociology class, weaving it around the story of her Vermont family, with its Native American and French Canadian roots. But tragedy dogs her when her sociology professor is strangled. As Ruth and Colm try to unravel the tangle of the two deaths, it becomes clear that both deaths, as well as the family history Donna is digging into, are coming together in a clashing climax that will leave none of the players unchanged.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy Means Wright lives, writes, and teaches in Vermont. This is her tenth book and her fourth mystery featuring Ruth Willmarth. Ruth is also the protagonist of a novella featured in Crimes of Passion, out in 2002 from Worldwide Mystery. Nancy can be reached at www.nancymeanswright.com.

From Publishers Weekly

Vermont's bucolic image takes a beating in this grim tale of vandalism, grave-robbing and murder, Wright's fourth (after 2000's Poison Apples) to feature amateur sleuth Ruth Willmarth. The trouble begins when beekeeper Gwen Woodleaf's mixed-race daughter, Donna, asks fratboy Shep Noble to drive her home after a party. After making a drunken amorous advance, Shep turns up dead in a patch of deadly nightshade, a forbidden plant cultivated by the Woodleafs. Suspicions point to either Donna's protective father, a pure-bred Indian who enjoys dressing the part, or a ruffian farmhand with his own designs on Donna. Neighbors who want to buy the Woodleafs' "sacred land" make their threats obvious. Meanwhile, professor Camille Wimmett is uncovering some nasty history concerning another mixed-race family, the Godineaux. When Camille is murdered, Ruth, whose daughter is a close friend of Donna's, carries on Camille's genealogical work while also looking for links to the double murder case. At times it's difficult to see how these two plots intertwine, for Ruth is at first fixated on the Godineaux and their many descendants. As she digs deeper, however, Ruth realizes that bigotry and hatred among families, races and even genders have led to terrible havoc in this less-than-idyllic corner of New England. The gentle jacket art suggests a cozy, but readers should be prepared for lots of unpleasantness leavened with some sobering feminist lessons.

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312262450
• ISBN 13: 9780312262457
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256