Missing, Presumed Wed: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery (Five Star First Edition Mystery) [Hardcover]

Sharon Wildwind (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 359 pages
• Publisher: Five Star (ME); 1 edition (September 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594147876
• ISBN-13: 978-1594147876
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #779,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars HIdden treasure, July 6, 2011

By 

J. Holmgren - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Missing, Presumed Wed: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

I thought I'd found all the good mystery series. This title is the first one of this series I've read, and I'm looking forward to going back to read the others. The writing and storytelling are right up there with any of the major authors. It's too bad that the publisher didn't take the book as seriously as it deserves. The print style and page layout are more in line with a self-published volume, and there were several homonym errors, such as "vice" when "vise" should have been used. With proper attention and promotion, I would have discovered this author sooner. Thank goodness for my public library, which purchased and featured the book. I would recommend this book to fans of anyone from Lee Child to Agatha Christie.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read!, January 3, 2010

By 

D.J. McIntosh "D.J. McIntosh" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Missing, Presumed Wed: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

We all know weddings are joyful occasions but they also bring out tensions that simmer for years below the surface.In Sharon Wildwind's novel, these tensions prove to be deadly. Ex- Green Beret Benny Kirkpatrick is marrying Lorraine Fulford, the widow of a close friend who died in Viet Nam. When family and friends gather to help out with wedding preparations, disaster strikes. The story is launched early in the novel as Benny's mother Grace is assaulted, kidnapped, and forced to abandon her young grandson.When she mysteriously turns up later in a dishevelled and confused state,her kidnapper is found murdered in the trunk of his car.

As the mystery plays out, Avivah Rosen, an ex military cop on the Asheville Police Force and Elizabeth Pepperhawk, a former army nurse, unravel the signposts leading to an even greater peril - a lethal event staged to destroy the wedding. Wildwind's writing is sure-footed and she handles a large cast of characters with ease. She artfully explores a number of issues - Pepper's alchohol addiction, Rosen's struggle to combat harrassment on the force, and the excruciating memories of the war, without ever sacrificing her story. Her novel gives readers a sophisticated blend of humour and raw suspense.

Highly recommended!

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner for Wildwind, October 6, 2009

By 

Lou Allin "Islander" (Vancouver Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Missing, Presumed Wed: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

Sharon Wildwind's latest exciting entry in her Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen series continues to raise the bar. The theme is family: one Main-Street gathering of a clan in particular and the long-running team of soldiers that has galvanized each book.


For the setting, try the exotic southern latitude of Asheville, North Carolina. If you're looking for eccentrics, there's one around every Victorian gingerbread and behind every live oak. And once the safety of town disappears? "Out north of Burnsville was strictly rural, a landscape filled with the highest peaks and deepest valleys in North Carolina. Avivah doubted that she would even find Hog Branch Road on a map. It sounded as though it was one of those places people talked about being so far back in the coves that you had to pipe in sunshine."

For the time period, try 1974, the anti-climactic but tumultuous years at the tragic conclusion of the Viet Nam War, when returning soldiers brought their own nightmares to a shakened America beginning to explore the challenges and changes of the Feminist Movement. The Old Order Changeth, but what fresh hell?

The gang's all here. Benny Kirkpatrick, scarred and stoic hero, has accepted the responsibility of marrying his dead best friend's widow and raising his sons. Avivah Rosen is working an unsatisfying job on a local police force and fighting the inevitable sexism. Elizabeth Pepperhawk is a nurse staying sober one day at a time. Colonel Darby Baxter is still bucking for a general's star. All are making preparations for their comrade's wedding. This gala occasion frames a plot sabotaged with tiger pits and punji sticks of sharpened bamboo, as dangerous as the jungles across the Pacific.

As the tribe gathers from all directions, Benny's mother is abducted, forced to leave her young grandson at the airport. The long-departed brother they had expected to meet has been detained in New York, suspected of being in the Irish Republican Army.

Grandma Grace appears shortly after, bruised and confused. Where has she been? Who rescued her? Could this respected matriarch be lying to protect someone? The man who abducted her had an unsavory reputation with the family back in Alaska decades ago. What is the role of the suspicious Cross of Joy ministry? Is MIA Randall himself still alive, or are the grainy pictures a fraud? Soon the entire family is involved in a murder which tries their trust for each other and the system.


Meanwhile, the on-again-off-again romance between Darby and Elizabeth takes a fearful turn as news that his ex-wife may be held hostage overseas. Does Pepperhawk dare dream of marriage when he, too, may disappear into the mist? Her old foe, the bottle, beckons at each twist of the plot.


And it's hard to imagine the tension Wildwind maintains as the clock ticks down to corral a gang of boisterous Green Berets into the mannered confines of a formal wedding. Will the ceremony take place? Or will Pepper's cherished military family be torn asunder, having escaped death in the war only to find a shameful peace? One tantalizing loose thread at the end leaves the promise that in the next book, the gang will be back in action in home territory.