It’s summer, 2020. The Covid pandemic is raging across the globe. Even in quiet Chautauqua, the Victorian-era, cottage-filled lake resort community in New York, life has been turned upside down. Especially for the family of Al Martin, mega-rich ‘country club prep’ and editor of the often-cruel satirical newspaper The Bugle. Recently deceased – and thought to be the first Covid death in Chautauqua Institution – Al doesn’t seem to be terribly missed by his family, although they are all keen to hear the reading of the will. Once a CEO for FLM Equipment, his father’s medical-device firm, Al seems to have made many enemies during his life. But Al’s sister Shannon is not so sure that coronavirus is to blame for her brother’s death. Could something more sinister be going on?
There’s been no test, no autopsy, and a hurried cremation – very unusual for a man who in life was so dedicated to the idea of tissue donation. The police are staying out of it, so Shannon – who is beginning to suspect foul play – calls in roving newspaper reporter Mimi Goldman to snoop around this peculiar case.
A PLAGUE AMONG US is the eighth in Deb Pines’ Chautauqua Mysteries series and this time finds Mimi, along with her elderly and ever-curious friend Sylvia, investigating the strange mystery. The now all-too-familiar patterns of Covid life – social distancing, adherence to masks, anxiety about having windows open – intrude into their murder investigation, but every clue takes the pair on a different path. Running through the novel is a subplot involving a series of lectures on historical pandemics – Spanish flu, the Black Plague, smallpox – which interestingly ties the Covid context of the book with the historically educational landscape of Chautauqua. Mimi finds out that someone was playing a series of threatening pranks on Al before he died, each based on one of the biblical plagues of Egypt. She’s also shown a viral video of Al squaring up against his neighbor, Sal, in a bizarre fight, and hears about a mysterious nurse present at the hospital the day of Al’s death. She also learns more about a family tragedy – a younger brother lost in the fallout after a dangerous, untested medical product developed by FLM Equipment took the lives of hundreds of women. What could it all mean? As tensions rise while the family waits to hear about Al’s estate – and what will happen to the huge funds raised by the sale of the family business – Mimi begins to suspect that there might be something to Shannon’s suspicions that murder was the cause of Al’s death. Could it be realtor Amy Martin, the estranged widow, or any one of Al’s siblings – magician Liam, or Beatlemaniac Patrick? Or maybe one of the many people Al lampooned in The Bugle caricatures? And how does secretive Kerry Montgomery, who works for the brothers as an aide and caregiver, tie into the mystery?
While not the first book in the series, A PLAGUE AMONG US is easy enough to pick up, even for those who haven’t read the earlier stories.
A tale of family intrigue, Deb Pines’ A PLAGUE AMONG US is an enjoyable read with a big cast of interesting characters, a number of peculiar clues and a suitably complex plot.
~Emily Jessica Turner for IndieReader