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CEMETERY YEW
by Cynthia Riggs
St. Martin's Minotaur, September 2003
243 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 0312321260


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE CEMETERY YEW is the third Martha's Vineyard mystery by Cynthia Riggs, a thirteenth-generation inhabitant of the island. Her protagonist is 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull, a lifelong resident who knows Martha's Vineyard inside out and sideways. Because of this encyclopedic knowledge the local police chief, Casey O'Neill, has made Victoria a deputy.

Howland Atherton's cousin, Dahlia, has come to stay with him while undergoing a course of chemotherapy for cancer. His house is not clean enough for her, so she comes to stay with Victoria and her granddaughter Elizabeth. She brings her pet toucan, Bacchus, who takes messy baths in the kitchen sink and barks like a dog.

Meanwhile, the family of a girl buried ten years ago requests her coffin be dug up so she can be reburied closer to the family. The gravediggers can't find the coffin until Victoria realizes that the nearest headstone has been moved. The coffin is found, dug up, and opened. It contains only bags of sand-like material which turns out not to be drugs.

Nobody in the grave, but shortly a body is found when a fire flares up in the city dump. Victoria finds a toucan pin near the body. What is the connection to Dahlia, and what is the secret of the coffin? Victoria investigates.

Cynthia Riggs is a good but not stellar writer. The book is adequate in its plotting, characters, and setting, but each could be better and perhaps are if one has read the first two books in the series. A good afternoon's read.

Reviewed by Mary A. Axford, October 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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