Poison Apples

Ruth Willmarth #3

by Nancy Means Wright

A bird beating on the windowpane means death, in Irish lore. Catastrophe has already hit the Earthrowls Vermont apple orchard: slashed trees, a plague of maggots, hate calls from a local cult, poisoned fruit that kills a Jamaican picker. Desperate, Moira turns to Ruth Willmarth. Ruth has troubles of her own, some closer than she knows. But she can't say no to a cry for help.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery

322 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2000

About the author

I'm the author of 18 books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, including 5 mystery novels from St. Martin's Press, 2 historical novels: Midnight Fires: a Mystery with Mary Wollstonecraft ('10)and the Nightmare ('11)from Perseverance Press.For those who don't know her, Wollstonecraft is the brilliant but rebellious and conflicted 18th century author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,and mother of Mary Shelley (think Frankenstein).
I've also published 2 mysteries for kids. The Pea Soup Poisonings, based on my own 4 kids'childhood shenanigans, won the '06 Agatha Award for Best Children's/YA Novel,and The Great Circus Train Robbery was a finalist. My latest mystery is Broken Strings, a spin-off from my St. Martin's Press novels with a puppeteer sleuth, and a novel, Walking up into the Wild for "tweens" (ages 10-14, set in 18th-century Vermont just before the end of the American Revolution. It's both suspenseful and romantic and based on family history. Not a mystery.
I've published poems and short fiction for Redbook, Seventeen, American Literary Review,Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and many literary journals and anthologies (Beacon Press, Ashland Poetry Press, Univ of Illinois Press, et al.).
A longtime actress & director,I'm a former Bread Loaf Scholar and Scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council. I live with my spouse and 2 Maine Coon cats in bucolic Middlebury, Vermont. "Becoming Mary Wollstonecraft" Facebook page.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Language. Very dark feeling book about revenge and using religion as a cover for bad actions - both are not happy subjects. But at least the story ends the way I like them to - the bad guys get theirs and the good guys are safe and hopefully wiser and not too broken by the happenings.

[Gwen Humphries · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot of the book was good however I felt that the book plodded along in many of the chapters.

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like reading mysteries, but I am not very good at thinking ahead as to who might be the culprit. In this novel, at least I was ahead of one of the characters.

I like how the loss of a family member was dealt with so differently by various characters.

[Daisyaday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Comma splices galore! Could have used a better editor. Interesting apple information.

[Lorretta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book because who doesn't love an apple orchard?!

I just couldn't summon up enough emotion for the characters; I wanted to kick all of them.