Murder Will Out: An Elizabeth Will Mystery - Hardcover

A moody change of pace after Yeager's first two novels, which starred underemployed New York actress Vic Bowering (Eviction by Death, 1993, etc.). The battle between painter Elizabeth Will's cantankerous father, Frank (a commercial fisherman), and Dovekey Beach (N.H.) selectman Al Jenness, who wants to introduce legalized gambling and prostitution to the coastal community, takes a nasty turn when Frank hauls in one of his lobster pots and finds it filled with Al's head, followed by the rest of him. The apparent cause of death: not drowning, but a cerebral hemorrhage occasioned by Al's having his head potted. The suspects: preservationist Dr. Charles MacKay of the Eternal Sea Group; Rev. Garrett Selby, head of the Children of Deity; Selby's kid brother Eli, a reclusive ex- con; and of course Frank Will, who in any other story would be booked and sweated. (The tip-off that things will be different this time is that Elizabeth's best friend, Ginny Philbrick, is the chief of police.) Instead of developing the obvious dramatic conflicts in group scenes between preservationists and developers, the innocent and the guilty, Yeager goes in for brief, atmospheric vignettes that keep all the characters at arm's length while Elizabeth and her sister Avis Donigian search for Will family records in which they're convinced the solution is buried. The resulting intimate mosaic of eccentric individuals is offbeat but inert--certainly no compensation for Vic Bowering's sorely missed panache and pizzazz. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Yeager's series launch introduces 30-ish Elizabeth Will, a painter who lives on the New Hampshire coast with her irascible, loving lobsterman father Frank. The town of Dovekey Beach is pitched in battle over a proposal to put legalized gambling and prostitution on its offshore islands. Frank's against it; Elizabeth supports the plan of married selectman Al Jenness (a would-be lover) to relieve the municipality's tax problem-until Al's murdered body turns up in one of Frank's lobster traps. Police Chief Ginny Philbrick, Elizabeth's best friend, questions inhabitants on Piscatawk island, site of a marine research project, and Cay's Island, home to a religous sect with an unctuous leader. Elizabeth sleuthes also, aided by her history-minded fisherman and suitor, Jesse Kneeland, and her visiting sister Avis. Their efforts uncover old documents that throw little light on the eventual, somewhat flat, solution of the murder. Yeager (Eviction By Death) offers breezy dialogue, lobstering lore and Down East atmosphere, but tension and menace dissolve in murky plotting and pervasive archness.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.