Encore to Murder
An Ed McAvoy Mystery, No. 3
By Bill Stackhouse 

     A shattered leg from a drug dealer's bullet forced Detroit homicide detective Ed McAvoy's retirement. He subsequently accepted the position of Police Chief at the small resort town of Peekamoose Heights, N.Y., figuring it will be an easy retirement job. This quiet village in the Catskills won't have any major crime, right? In this prequel to Stackhouse's first novel, Stream of Death, Veronica Loring, a former model and fashion designer, is found dead in her Jaguar XJS at the bottom of a cliff. At first, McAvoy thinks he is investigating an accident, but then it begins to look like murder.

     My favorite characters from previous Ed McAvoy stories are back; some of them related to Ed, and each has their own eccentricities. There's the Mountain Gap Rep Production group that are preparing the latest play for the small theater; and the denizens of the Plough and Whistle, an unexpected English Pub, set in Peekamoose Heights. Stackhouse delivers when it comes to plotting, characterization and setting.

     Five suspects are on McAvoy's list: Veronica's business partner, Jennifer Rooney; Veronica's brother, David; Jack Dunbar, a design associate in their firm; Jack's jealous wife, Kim; and competing fashion designer Roger St. Ives. It will take all his skill as a big city homicide detective to solve this crime, but McAvoy has a few tricks to trap the murderer.

     Stackhouse's novels are a refreshing change from the explicit violence and language that abound in most of the new suspense novels. I'm looking forward to reading his latest, Black Irish Setter.