Death in Still Waters: A Chesapeake Bay Mystery [Hardcover]

Barbara Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

The winner of the St. Martin's Press 1994 Malice Domestic Best First Novel contest is set in a small Maryland community near Chesapeake Bay, where Eve Elliott and her two dogs investigate a twenty-five-year-old mystery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Winner of the publisher's 1994 Malice Domestic competition for best first mystery, this unevenly effective tale introduces 40-year-old Eve Elliott, a New York advertising whiz gone stale, whose double-decade marriage is kaput. While visiting her beloved aunt in coastal Maryland, Eve is walking by a waterside bungalow when she observes a local man, Will St. Claire, discover that his old dog has drowned, a plastic yellow rope tight around its neck. The next day she finds the bungalow's elderly owner drowned in the same place, his own dogs locked in the house. The police label the death accidental, but gossiping villagers recall the drowning of a young woman in that spot 25 years earlier. Eve, who decides to rent the bungalow and care for the dead man's dogs, is haunted by forebodings and troubling questions. Why has someone thrown a dead animal onto her doorstep? What do some dim-witted, loutish locals have to do with these and other nasty events? Who were Will St. Claire's birth parents? A trip to New York and information from others blessed with powerful, not entirely credible, memories, help Eve solve the puzzles. Despite a surfeit of whispering pines and whimpering dogs, Lee skillfully evokes both place and populace.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA?The combination of a recently failed marriage and a reluctance to head up a cigarette-ad campaign compel advertising executive Eve Elliott to accept her widowed aunt's invitation to visit. Traveling to the peaceful Magothy River on the Chesapeake Bay, Eve rents the waterfront cottage of Ray Tilghman, who was found drowned in his own cove; his two dogs, Lancelot and Ezekiel, come with the cottage. Ray's death brings back local memories of the drowning of a young actress 24 years before. When Eve is warned to mind her own business, she follows her instinct that the two deaths are related and begins investigating. The locals' aversion to newcomers and land developers is realistically depicted; the two dogs are endearing and an integral part of the story. Though the killer's identity may be apparent early on, the story's twists and turns and intriguing characters will hold readers' interest.?Pam Spencer, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312130481
• ISBN-13: 978-0312130480
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,557,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming Waterfront Community Except Bodies Keep Popping Up!, August 4, 2001

By 

Casey Stewart "kcfoxy: accept no substitute" (San Joaquin Delta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death in Still Waters: A Chesapeake Bay Mystery (Hardcover)

Eve Elliot has a bummer of a 40th birthday party. She's separated from her straying husband of 20+ years, she's sick and tired of the dog-eat-dog world of New York City high power advertising, and the spector of middle-age has reared its ugly gray head.

So an invitation to visit her favorite, elderly aunt, in the charming waterfront Maryland community near Chesapeake Bay, sounds like the perfect anecdote to encroaching burn-out and an inevitable divorce.

Aunt Lillian runs a small Real Estate office, faltering in the past year since the death of her beloved husband, Max. Eve's drive over to view the property of curmudgeonly Ray, whose waterfront holdings include a small cove, results in a gruesome discovery. It seems the old man is busy fishing the body of a large white out of the water, obviously someone's beloved pet.

Discovering the yellow nylon rope cinched tightly around the limp body, Eve can only imagine the worst. When the old man's body turns up floating the almost the exact same spot less than 24 hours later, close knit town folk begin to mutter and gossip, comparing this to another questionable drowning, in the identical location, 25 years ago!

While Eve struggles to come to grips with her failed marriage, and takes leave from her high pressure job, she also decides to take up residence in the dead man's cottage. Her sense of ownership, she found the man's body, lead her to ruffle more than a few feathers in the Pines. The hornet's nest she stirs up may come at a high cost: her life.

A number of locals come under suspicion as Eve seeks to unravel mysteries that most would prefer to ignore. The Police Department takes the view that these deaths are accidental, and takes little action, if any, toward solving what Eve is certain are linked murders. The final showdown is graphic, exciting and ultimately satisfying.

Lee's first novel gives a good sense of place, offers several deftly created, and likeable characters, and provides a highly enjoyable, plot-driven tale that you will be hard pressed to put down. Somewhere between a cozy and more sharply etched mystery, Barbara Lee has created a heroine that will have you seeking out her two other volumes in this highly regarded series: Final Closing and Dead Man's Fingers.