Like a junk food junkie, I'm on a Sarah Graves kick. Mike brought home The Dead Cat Bounce, which is the first book in the series. Jake has only lived in Eastport for about a year, but all of the familiar characters are there--her friends Ellie and George have not married yet, however. Jake has gotten involved with Wade, who she later marries -- a solid, tough man who works as a harbor pilot, and her son Sam is finding his way as he decides to follow his own wishes, and not those of his father.
As the book opens, Jake and Ellie are talking in her kitchen when Jake walks into her storeroom and finds a dead man. Of course, they call for the police, and George is the first to arrive--among his other jobs, he works as a part time police officer. He checks the murder scene and takes pictures, and then he and Jake discover that the murder weapon--an ice pick--is missing. Jake also realizes that only Ellie could have taken it. Things get worse when Ellie confesses to the crime to Police Chief Bob Arnold.
The dead man turns out to be Threnody Mellwaine, a local boy who grew up with Ellie's father, Alvin. However, while Alvin stayed on the island and ran a lumberyard, Thren went off to the big city and became a wealthy businessman. He had an argument with Alvin the morning of the murder and it is not clear how he ended up in Jake's storeroom. Ellie seems to be protecting someone, but who? As the obedient only daughter, she lives with her parents and cares for her mean spirited mother, who was once a beautiful young dancer but is now a bitter, crippled old woman. Ellie broke off her engagement with George after concluding that she could not break a promise to her father, who is the one who really raised her. Now Ellie will not defend herself but tells Jake that it is up to her to find out what happened.
As the book progresses, we get a better sense of the characters and their relationships--as well as the setting. Victor, Jake's ex-husband, makes an appearance and the contrast between Victor's self-centered personality and that of Wade could not be greater. Jake puts herself in danger unwittingly, while she tries to solve the mystery of who killed Thren and why Ellie confessed.
As it turns out, the title of the book is stock market jargon "for a small, temporary rise in a stock's trading price after a sharp drop." (from the book's backcover). Part of the unraveling of the mystery is finding out more about the financial dealings of Alvin and Thren.
Every time I read one of these books, I can smell the salt air, picture the harbor and recall the sound of the ocean waves crashing up on the shore. Having lived in Newport, Rhode Island for eleven years, I came to appreciate the wild beauty of the ocean and having lived in Newport, I understand something of what it means to live on an island. There were only a couple of routes off the island-- a very high bridge to Fall River and a toll bridge to Jamestown.
My first husband and I took a camping trip to Bar Harbor, Maine and I remember that trip with great memories of little fishing villages, wonderful food, and magnificent mountains and scenery. After reading this series, I want to take a road trip!
You can find The Dead Cat Bounce in the Waterloo Library's mystery section.
c Waterloo Public Library 2008
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