DEATH IN THE SECRET GARDEN
by Richard Forrest
More small-town mayhem for Connecticut State Senator Bea Wentworth and her children’s-author husband Lyon (The Pied Piper of Death, 1997, etc.).
Who says there’s nothing to do in bucolic Murphysville? Recent high-school grad Boots Anderson’s pregnancy has been terminated by a bullet in the state forest; her rumored lover, used-car dealer Eddy Rashish, is promptly dispatched by her grieving dad; Congressman Bill Tallman, the governor’s husband, interrupts his latest congress with escort Ashley Towers for a fatal heart attack; and Barbara Styles, the take-charge secretary of St. James Episcopal, is gunned down in the church office. The leading suspects—an addled Vietnam vet, the local studmuffin, the Episcopal canon—couldn’t be more different. The rash of sudden death spells overtime for Police Chief Rocco Herbert—who has to make do with a patrolman who contaminates a crime scene, allows a suspect in his custody to kill himself, and loses his weapon to still another suspect—and trouble for the Wentworths. The governor, convinced that Bea was her husband’s last lover, resolves to ruin her, and the little boy for whom Lyon’s volunteered to serve as a Big Buddy turns out to be the preteen from hell.
Maybe a little too replete with unconnected violent incident, but nobody will complain that Forrest doesn’t keep the pot boiling or season the stew with occasional clues: a tale that must set a record for megadeaths per capita.