DEATH ECHO

After a visit to her long-distance boyfriend Dan Sikora back in Ohio, photojournalist Libby Kincaid (Still Waters, Cold Feet) promises Dan's old girlfriend Pam Bates that she'll return to investigate her stepmother Lydia Butcher's sudden strange behavior—refusing to leave her house, spending hardly any of her money—in exchange for an exclusive interview with Lydia's reclusive, newly famous sister Mavis Skye Nihiser, 80-something author of homespun bestseller The Tree of Life. Unfortunately, Lydia, by far the most interesting denizen of Echo, Ohio, is fatally shot by an arrow, and Libby winds up threshing through the predictable suspects—Lydia's layabout son Neil, Mavis's blind son Glen Sharpe and twice-divorced husband Russell Wynell, and Neil's fiancÇe Cherry Dee Diehl, a home health aide—and nosing out a predictably ancient family secret. Messy complications—it's really a juicy secret—are hoarded until the very last minute; not even engaging Libby can overcome the resulting imbalance between leisurely sleuthing and suddenly torrential returns.