What’s Christmas in Eastport without a good murder? Well, for resident amateur detective Jacobia Tiptree, the holiday season is definitely not complete. And she goes about solving it masterfully in Sarah Graves’ latest mystery, Wreck the Halls.
Not surprisingly, this one is beautifully constructed, with a host of suspects, all of them logical and all with powerful motives.
A distinguishing feature of this particular tale is that although there is an especially gory murder, the Christmas festivities, including Eastport’s yuletide boat parade, are truly festive. And Graves’s descriptions of food, holiday and otherwise, are enough to make your mouth water.
Although Sarah Graves’ five books are known locally as the Eastport murder mysteries, her publisher calls the series “Home Repair is Homicide.” And once again Jacobia’s 1823 house on Key Street needs work.
Tiptree says, “Thus I’d also purchased a hollow screw extractor, since taking off the side trim otherwise would mean prying it, which was guaranteed to break it. But with the hollow screw extractor you can core out a fastener – a nail, say, or a stubborn wood screw – along with the wood around it. Then you simply coat the hole with white glue, tap in the right-sized, similarly coated wooden dowel, and voila!”
If you want any further tips, buy the book.
Once again, Graves’s descriptive talents are in evidence: “A truck passed, its tire chains jingling, and then a second one, backfiring copiously. A purple finch hopped from one bare, thorny rose cane to another. Then nothing moved but blue shadows lengthening on the snow, gathering up what remained of the thin, desolate winter light.”
And we have hints, foreboding hints: “Still, I couldn’t shake the impression that the whole place was lit up like the tarmac around an airport terminal.
“Or like a prison yard.”
We also have social notes from all over, as in the proper time for cocktails: “Ellie took coffee but as far as I’m concerned, when a rifle shot misses me by two feet, cocktail hour has arrived.” Ellie, by the way, is Jacobia’s sleuthing sidekick.
If it’s Christmas season in Eastport, it’s also scallop season, and it’s not uncommon Downeast for a boat to get into trouble. Such is the case here, and Tiptree says, “Eastport women have been sending their men to sea for hundreds of years, no one makes much fuss over it. But by six that evening, all the wives of the ETTA’s crew were in my kitchen, white-faced and silent.”
For those who’ve read earlier Graves mysteries, the central cast of characters returns in Wreck the Halls, plus, obviously, some fascinating newcomers. But, as is the case with all of her volumes, this one stands on its own two feet.
Finally, the Graves hallmark is much in evidence, namely plot twists and turns that will leave you guessing until the final pages. If you need a great gift for under the tree, or if you just want to give yourself a treat, Wreck the Halls is a must.
Graves will be signing her book at Port in a Storm bookstore in Somesville on Saturday, Dec. 8, from 1-3 p.m.