Book Talk Tuesday: Field of Darkness

Book Talk Tuesday: Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read

I've been looking forward to this one for a long while.
I used to lurk on several mystery writer email loops and Cornelia Read's comments were always pithy, witty, and spot on.

Field of Darkness is Read's debut novel, but it reads like it's from an accomplished pro, which of course it is. She has three more books in addition to this one.

Madeline Dare comes from money so old it was coined on the Mayflower. Except she no longer has access to it. She's happily married but unhappily living in upstate New York and working as the lifestyle reporter for the local paper.

In a dinner conversation with her in-laws, a long-unsolved murder is mentioned and piques Maddie's interest. Her father-in-law shows her his connection to the case: a set of dog-tags he found at the scene. Dog-tags with the name of her favorite Oyster Bay cousin.

The case won't let go of Maddie and she begins to investigate just enough to prove her cousin's innocence. But by then, she's roused dogs that weren't just sleeping, they were tranquilized and now they're hungry and angry.

Field of Darkness was just what I expected from Cornelia Read. Clever, tight, and a rollicking good read. Just enough humor to keep it from being depressingly dark. Enough suspense to keep me turning the pages long into the night.

I'll add Read's other books to my towering stack of To-Be-Reads.