What do you think?
Rate this book
Connor Westphal #2
Sign of Foul Play
Last night's earthquake has the California Gold Country town of Flat Skunk buzzing; and over her morning mocha, deaf newswoman Connor Westphal is shaping it into a lead story for her local paper, the Eureka! Then her TTY phone brings more sensational news: a twisted corpse has been found on a construction site owned by her rival publisher, Harlan Truax. What was the dead soil engineer doing there at midnight, and was it the quake that toppled him four stories to his death? An act of God--or human malevolence?
Connor is soon back in the sleuth business, uncovering Flat Skunk's darkest secrets: from toxic dirt to tainted relationships. But someone's out to stop her, and they're saying it with flowers, verses, menacing e-mail--and a series of murders that could knock the numbers off the Richter scale and silence one lip-reading reporter forever.
Connor is soon back in the sleuth business, uncovering Flat Skunk's darkest secrets: from toxic dirt to tainted relationships. But someone's out to stop her, and they're saying it with flowers, verses, menacing e-mail--and a series of murders that could knock the numbers off the Richter scale and silence one lip-reading reporter forever.
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
4 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Penny Warner
145 books138 followersPenny Warner is an award-winning author of over sixty books, including DEAD BODY LANGUAGE mystery series (Macavity winner), HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY series, and the upcoming Food Festival series. Her middle-grade mystery, THE CODE BUSTERS CLUB, won the Agatha Award for Best Children's Mystery.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 19, 2021
Gold rush country is experiencing earthquakes, and when a man is found dead after apparently falling off the edge of a building, the tremblors are blamed. Connor Westphal isn't so sure.
It turns out there were a host of people with reason for wanting the man dead. When other murders occur, it seems that Connor was right.
An excellent cozy.
It turns out there were a host of people with reason for wanting the man dead. When other murders occur, it seems that Connor was right.
An excellent cozy.
November 27, 2020
Two earthquakes in the middle of the night made it hard for Connor Westphal to sleep. However, she is going about her Monday morning when she gets a message from her friend Dan telling her there is a news story at the construction site he is working at. When Connor arrives to get the scoop for her weekly paper, she finds that someone has discovered the dead body of Cullen Delancy. The working theory is that he fell to his death when the earthquake struck, but what was he doing on the site in the middle of the night?
I’ve got to admit, I roll my eyes a bit when I see an earthquake pop up in a story set in California, but I quickly got over that here since it made for an interesting set up to the mystery. There are plenty of twists and surprises to keep us guessing. I did figure a couple of them out early, but I was still plenty surprised when Connor pieced it together at the end. Connor is deaf, which sets her apart from other series leads, and I love seeing how that plays out in the story. She’s a strong main character, and the rest of the cast is wonderful as well. The story edges just a bit toward the outskirts of cozies, but as long as you know that going in, you’ll be fine. The book came out in 1998, and it is really amazing how much technology has changed our lives in the past couple of decades. This is a great second in the series, and I’m looking forward to visiting Connor again soon.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
I’ve got to admit, I roll my eyes a bit when I see an earthquake pop up in a story set in California, but I quickly got over that here since it made for an interesting set up to the mystery. There are plenty of twists and surprises to keep us guessing. I did figure a couple of them out early, but I was still plenty surprised when Connor pieced it together at the end. Connor is deaf, which sets her apart from other series leads, and I love seeing how that plays out in the story. She’s a strong main character, and the rest of the cast is wonderful as well. The story edges just a bit toward the outskirts of cozies, but as long as you know that going in, you’ll be fine. The book came out in 1998, and it is really amazing how much technology has changed our lives in the past couple of decades. This is a great second in the series, and I’m looking forward to visiting Connor again soon.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
June 11, 2012
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK FOR KINDLE. I'm done with this author. It's a shame, because these are enjoyable books. The font size changes sporadically. Random numbers and letters show up between words. The second half of the book is in italics. Clearly whoever converted this book has never heard of proof-reading or even Calibre.
May 13, 2010
A deaf protagonist makes this book different from typical mysteries and, having some friends who teach the deaf or are deaf, it's very interesting to me. Penny Warner is great at crafting characters you'd like to be friends with in real life!
March 31, 2011
nicely convoluted
May 9, 2011
2nd in the series. Like the characters and the mystery. Looking forward to the next one. This mystery occurs after an earthquake -- town is called Flat Skunk. Nice easy read.
August 19, 2013
I always wanted to be able to sign...
December 23, 2016
Nice series. Kept me guessing for quite awhile.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews