Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery

by Lawrence Rotch

Forty years ago, Sarah Cassidy attended Migawoc Girls’ Camp in midcoast Maine where she befriended Myra Huggard, the camp’s crotchety neighbor. Migawoc is gone now, its land sold off for house lots, but when the elderly couple who ran the place invite Sarah to spend the summer in Maine she jumps at the chance to escape her recent divorce and get out on the water in Owl, the camp’s old sailboat. Myra Sarah’s vacation turns lethal when she discovers that Myra has been murdered, and nearly everyone seems to have a motive. When Sarah and Oliver Wendell, a reclusive boatbuilder who is helping her fix up Owl, start asking the wrong questions, they find themselves being stalked by a killer. To solve the mystery, Sarah must reexamine her childhood relationship with Myra, struggling to separate reality from illusion, while also dealing with her troublesome ex-husband and a would-be suitor whose interest may have more to do with murder than romance.

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 3, 2008

Reviews

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about very modern problems in this part of Maine. People move up to Maine because they love the scenery and the feeling of the place, but it is ruined by the number of people going up because they love it. New money is warring with the people who have been there for generations but usually don't have much money. It doesn't usually end up in murder in real life but what is the fun of that in a mystery. It goes a bit slow in places.

[C P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read. Light entertainment

Recommend for light mystery readers. Surprise at end keeps reader guessing about what might have happened when main character was visiting for summer camp, never to return until decades later.

[Lynn W · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a fun , easy read with plenty of surprises. I enjoyed the setting. I will be reading Standing Dead next week 😊