Hunter’s Heart Ridge

Taylor’s slow-building second mystery featuring taciturn detective Franklin Warren of the Vermont State Police (after Agony Hill) paints an evocative portrait of the mid-1960s, complete with arguments about the war in Vietnam and the ambient buzz of nuclear paranoia. Warren is called to the Ridge Club, an exclusive hunting lodge, where former ambassador to West Germany William Moulton has been found dead. Despite circumstantial evidence that he may have died in a hunting accident and implications from fellow guests that it was suicide, Warren soon comes to believe Moulton was murdered. An intense snowstorm then knocks out phone lines and strands Warren and his colleague, Walter Goodrich, at the lodge with their suspects. Meanwhile, Warren’s best friend, Alice Farnham Bellows—an elderly widow and former spy—is tending to a neighbor and preparing a dinner party when her old handler comes knocking, prompting her to wonder if he has information about Moulton’s death. Given the amount of ground the narrative covers, Taylor’s pacing can be erratic, but she makes up for it with richly drawn characters and an immersive New England setting. By the time Warren cracks the case, readers will be eager for future adventures. (Aug.)