Hunter's Heart Ridge (Franklin Warren and Alice Bellows Mystery #2) by Sarah Stewart Taylor
Publication Date: August 5th 2025 by Minotaur Books
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: ★★★★
Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads
My
Thoughts:
It’s 1965 and the start of deer season in Bethany, Vermont with
a snowstorm fast approaching. Detective Franklin
Warren is called up to The Ridge Club, a hunting lodge, when a former diplomat,
Bill Moulton, is found dead in an apparent hunting accident. As Warren and his assistant,
Pinky, interview the guests they’re stranded by this intense storm with downed
phone and power lines.
Alice Bellows is unsettled by the reappearance of an old
intelligence agent, Arthur Crannock. He and his wife have bought a home nearby
and are in the process of remodeling. It’s been years since Alice’s diplomat/spy
husband died. Years since Alice has assisted with missions, but she’s
suspicious of Arthur’s motives. Alice needs to figure out if she’s in danger.
Sylvie Weber, now heavily pregnant, tags along with Alice to
a poetry reading. Alice gets caught out at Sylvie’s farm when the snowstorm arrives
in full force.
This was a locked door sort of mystery with the guests of the
Ridge Club stranded with Detective Warren and Pinky. There are several with a
motive to kill Moulton and so they’re all in danger. Especially when the guests
are reluctant to divulge information. It’s a mystery that kept me guessing!
Hunter’s Heart Ridge is the second book in a series
best read in order, even though this is a new mystery. The history and
relationships from the last book carry over, deepening and progressing here. We
get more of Alice’s history, parts of it surprising and personally painful for
her. I worry about Arthur’s presence. I continue to root for Sylvie and Warren
even if it’s difficult. As with the first book, the time period was an
interesting feature, and the setting of a wintery Vermont was richly portrayed!
I’m eager for the next installment!
4 Stars
Book Description:
In this sequel to Taylor’s lyrical series debut, Agony Hill, Detective Frank Warren and his formerly CIA-connected neighbor Alice Bellows return to investigate the death of a diplomat.
It's November of 1965 and the second weekend of Vermont's regular deer season. Vermont State Police detective Franklin Warren is hunting in the woods when he gets a call to return to Bethany. There's been an accident at The Ridge Club, an exclusive men's hunting and fishing club for congressmen, diplomats, judges, and titans of a former ambassador has been shot while out hunting. With the war in Vietnam picking up speed on the other side of the world, Warren quickly realizes that many of the club’s members are powerful men who may have ulterior motives and connections in high places.
While Warren's suspicions about the club members build, his neighbor Alice Bellows is throwing a dinner party, preparing for Thanksgiving, and worrying about her pregnant friend and fellow widow, Sylvie Weber, whose due date is coming up. When Alice's old handler and friend, Arthur Crannock, unexpectedly shows up in Bethany, Alice begins to wonder whether his presence has anything to do with the death at the hunting club.
As an early season snowstorm bears down on Bethany, knocking out power and phone lines and blocking the roads, Warren and his assistant, Trooper Pinky Goodrich, are trapped at the Ridge Club, likely along with a killer, and Alice, increasingly fearful that her past in the intelligence world is no longer in the past, will have to act fast to save Sylvie and her baby.
Sarah Stewart Taylor’s historical series combines the intricacy of a satisfying mystery with keen observation of a time and place during great transformation and upheaval.
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