Thread of Gold - Softcover

Da Vigo, Anne S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0974572217 ISBN 13: 9780974572215

Publisher: Quill Driver Press, 2017

Synopsis

"Stop the presses! An appealing crime fiction heroine is born!" --Kirkus Reviews
"Do not miss this book, adventurous readers." --Les Standiford, bestselling author of Meet You in Hell

Author Anne Da Vigo weaves a gem of a story about gold, greed, longing, and forbidden love that spans three generations of women ensnared by a local legend of buried treasure.

Abby is a girl on the lip of her teens in 1918 who's in love with her older neighbor and agrees to keep his secret. Alice, haunted by loneliness, joins the corps of women welders building ships during World War II. And contemporary crime reporter Cora Brooks launches an investigation into the death of the publisher's friend.

As Cora digs into the murder, every twist in the case draws her more deeply into the lives of women from the past and their connection to an illusive treasure.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Da Vigo is a novelist, journalist and public relations professional. She graduated from Fresno State University and worked for newspapers throughout California where she wrote about scams, murders, and other mayhem on the court and police beats. She covered the infamous Chowchilla kidnapping of 26 children from a rural school bus and the Lords of Bakersfield murder cases. The seed for her novel, Thread of Gold, came from a 1994 New York Times article detailing mysterious deaths in the tiny village of Preble in upstate New York. Her mother’s family had deep roots in the area, and Da Vigo saved the clipping, eventually crafting it into this twisting, complex blend of reality and fiction. She is winner of the novel excerpt competition at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference and the recipient of the Jameson Book Award given by the University of Pacific’s Creative Writing at Pacific conference. She has been a featured writer at Stories on Stage Sacramento. Her short stories have appeared in Literary Mama, Penduline Press, The Capra Review, and Fiction on the Web.

From Kirkus Reviews

A San Francisco reporter might lose more than her job when her editor forces her to investigate the supposed suicides of two New York breeders of prize-winning dairy cattle. In this debut novel, Cora Brooks is a veteran on the police beat for the *San Francisco Standard*. She is 45 and suffering the indignities of “an ungrateful son, a husband who’d found a younger woman, a body run amok,” not to mention an unsympathetic editor who seems bent on replacing her with a rival reporter. Despite her protests, Brooks is dispatched to New York to follow up on a *New York Times* story about two dead men. One of them, Sean O’Brien, was the publisher’s friend. The other was Franklin Santerra, a dairyman who over a four-month period sold O’Brien three highly insured prize cows, each of which died within four weeks of the transaction. Over the course of a fraud investigation, O’Brien ingested strychnine and Santerra, four days later, blew his head off with a shotgun. Brooks has her suspicions, not about the case, but concerning the editor’s motivation for sending her: “You think I’ll screw up so you can fire me. Save one layoff.” The seasoned reporter does not anticipate becoming part of the story as she uncovers links to her own haunted past and seeks closure to the mystery of the mother who abandoned her. The book alternates chapters *Gone Girl*-style. At one point, Brooks is the focus of five consecutive chapters. Others are devoted to Abby, a woman at the turn of the century who becomes involved with an O’Brien ancestor; State Police Maj. Del Somer, who was once married to O’Brien’s widow; and Alice, Brooks’ elusive mother. Da Vigo has a strong sense of place and writes authentically about a profession under siege by corporate takeovers. And in Brooks, she has created a flawed, but capable and empathetic character. “You’re a pisser, aren’t you?” Somer asks at one point. “Only in my better moments,” she replies. Stop the presses! An appealing crime fiction heroine is born.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quill Driver Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0974572217
• ISBN 13: 9780974572215
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 428