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Matinicus: An Island Mystery Reviewed By Lavanya Karthik of Bookpleasures.com
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Lavanya Karthik

Reviewer Lavanya Karthik: Lavanya is from Mumbai, India and is a licensed architect and consultant in environmental management. She lives in Mumbai with her husband and six-year old daughter. She loves reading and enjoys a diverse range of authors across genres.



 
By Lavanya Karthik
Published on June 21, 2012
 

Author: Darcy Scott

Publisher: Turtle Pond Press

ISBN-13: 978-1-936447-23-7

E-book editions: Kindle, Smashwords


Follow Here To Purchase Matinicus: An Island Mystery

Author: Darcy Scott

Publisher: Turtle Pond Press

ISBN-13: 978-1-936447-23-7

E-book editions: Kindle, Smashwords

Parallel mysteries separated by a century unfold in Matinicus, Darcy Scott’s engrossing new book about life – and death - in an isolated fishing community. Alternating between the perspectives of three very different characters, nothing is quite what it seems in this page turner that blends impeccably plotted mystery with a gritty examination of human frailty and desire.

A disastrous fling with a student has botanist Gil Hodges fleeing to the remote island of Matinicus in Maine for a spot of tree cataloging. All Hodges hopes to find is peace and quiet, and second chances – in his career, as well as with Rachel, the enigmatic islander who has lent him her house. What he finds instead is intrigue, multiple murder, century old secrets – and ghosts. Rachel’s house harbors the troubled spirit of a young woman, who soon steers Hodges towards the century old journal of Hannah, a child bride resident on the island. As he tries to unravel the secret of his spooky housemate’s identity through Hannah’s impassioned writings, Hodges realizes that nothing much has changed on Matinicus since her time.  For, cut off from the mainland and ignored by the police, Matinicus has evolved into an insular community with its own code of justice and prejudices, torn apart by bitter fighting among its rival clans, and simmering with  the repressed desires and frustrations of its inhabitants. Matinicus is, in effect, a ticking bomb and all it takes is the arrival of the seductive Kirtley for the island to explode in a frenzy of violent deaths. As the body count rises and his ghostly companion becomes increasingly agitated, Hodges realizes that the key to solving the murders and his own haunting just might lie locked within Hannah’s story.

Matinicus is that rare thing, a clever mystery that has you by the throat from go, admirably sustains its pace and atmosphere, and manages to surprise right up until the end. Hodges, Tiffany and Hannah, the three flawed narrators telling us this tale are well crafted characters. Author Scott invests each with a very believable voice – Hodges is wry, self deprecating, and utterly in thrall to every woman who will have him; Hannah, at once bitter and pitiful, Tiffany, your typical whiny teenager. Essentially unlikeable as they are, they also stayed with me long after I had finished the book. I blame Scott’s deft hand entirely.

For the legions of fans I fully expect ‘Matinicus’ to gather, there is good news - this book is first in a mystery trilogy starring reluctant detective Gil Hodges. Definitely a series I look forward to.


Follow Here To Purchase Matinicus: An Island Mystery