In 1972, a Purity policeman watches a driver mow down and kill three innocent people on Main Street. Then the madman shoots the officer, and soon they are all dead. Investigators never learn why such an ordinary, apparently law-abiding citizen suddenly committed such a ghastly act, and the sad story gradually fades. Jump a half-century to the present day, when the Conovers, a family of longtime summer residents, are arriving back in town. Fifteen-year-old Zoe goes swimming in Maiden Pond with a newfound friend and mysteriously disappears later that day. She is an excellent swimmer and diver, so drowning seems unlikely. Perhaps she has been abducted, perhaps worse. She is not \u201cthe sort of girl you\u2019d think would get into trouble.” Naturally, Zoe\u2019s parents are frantic. Enter acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau and the Martini Club, a delightful group of five retired government spooks who just love a good puzzle to keep their aging brains in shape. They are merry meddlers who keep trying to help Thibodeau, a \u201cdogged investigator\u201d who resists their aid, or tries to. The Martini Club asks the acting chief to keep them in the loop, and of course she wants them nowhere near the case. But by that time, the five ex-spies are already involved, and one of them, Maggie Bird, surmises that this is most likely a kidnapping case. Maiden Pond is central to the story. There are a mix of houses around it, on one side seasonal rentals for the well to do, and on the other\u2014the marshy, buggy side\u2014permanent homes for the locals, such as the son of the long-ago murderer. Nobody waves at Reuben Tarkin, a social outcast because of his father\u2019s heinous crime. The Conovers say he\u2019d harassed their nanny to the point where she\u2019d suddenly up and quit. Meanwhile, the investigators chase down clue after clue, wondering the who, what, and why of it all. The Conovers doubt Thibodeau\u2019s abilities, believing she\u2019s in over her head. The Martini Club folks continually impress her with their insights. \u201cYou people just love being smarter than me, don\u2019t you?\u201d But secrets and plot twists abound, and their collective intellect may not be enough.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1972, a Purity policeman watches a driver mow down and kill three innocent people on Main Street. Then the madman shoots the officer, and soon they are all dead. Investigators never learn why such an ordinary, apparently law-abiding citizen suddenly committed such a ghastly act, and the sad story gradually fades. Jump a half-century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}