Skullduggery’s afoot as Eastport’s sleuth is on the case
Probably the best way to describe Sarah Graves’s latest mystery is simply to say that the book is aptly titled.
As was the case with Graves’s previous eight novels, the reader is not far into this one before there is skullduggery afoot, including, of course, a corpse. And once again Jacobia Tiptree, Eastport’s legendary, if fictional, sleuth begins a her journey toward solving a crime with more twists and turns than you can shake a shillalagh at.
Readers of earlier Graves offerings will find many familiar faces, Tiptree’s family, sleuthing sidekick Ellie, husband Wade and son Sam, for example. There are also new faces, some virtuous, some villainous.
New readers, however, will find that Nail Biter can stand alone as a great read.
Publisher’s Weekly describes Tiptree as “a sleuth as tough as the nails she drives into the walls of her 1823 Federal home.” True enough; she has the courage to pursue justice wherever it may take her, but she does get frightened, sometimes makes mistakes and sometimes takes hair-raising risks.
She’s not infallible. In other words, she’s human, and that’s one of the strengths of Graves’s novels.
As is the case with earlier books, Tiptree mentally catalogs items that need repairs even as she’s about to step into a particularly harrowing situation. And once again, Graves has provided home repair tips for the reader, set in graphic boxes.
Nail Biter is different from its predecessors, however, in that Tiptree reveals much more about her personal life and her family as Graves develops her more and more into a full-fledged person.
Tiptree retains her sense of humor, though. For example, in the face of what may be a haunted house (it’s Halloween after all) she says: “Yup, that was it: a low, mournful woo noise alternating with a high, overexcited yow-wow! It had started a little while ago and could I please do something about it, they’d wanted to know. Because it was driving them crazy.
“Biting my tongue, I’d refrained from replying that in the week since they’d arrived I’d learned all about being driven crazy and as far as I was concerned, a woo noise was small potatoes.” So, what was the noise?
You’ll enjoy finding out as you read the book, scheduled to be published in January.
A veteran reporter, Bob Gustafson reads and reports from Eastport.