Agony Hill A mystery

A New England detective investigates a farmer's death while concealing his own dark past in this slow-burning series launch from Stewart Taylor (the Maggie D'Arcy Mysteries). In the 1960s, Franklin Warren leaves Boston for sleepy Bethany, Vt., to take a job as a state detective. His first case is the death of Hugh Weber, an overbearing "back-to-the-lander" who came to Bethany from New York City 15 years earlier. Warren's colleagues think Weber died by suicide, but the detective suspects it might be murder, owing to how unpopular he was in town. While interviewing Weber's many enemies, Warren untangles the private, interconnected dramas of Bethany's citizens, and broods on the tragedy that moved him to leave Boston. Meanwhile, widow Alice Bellows, a former spy, keeps her eye on Warren while investigating the theft of bullets from Bethany's general store. Stewart Taylor nails the rural setting, and Warren is a promising lead, but some readers may grow frustrated as the narrative detours into the backstories of its large cast. Still, there's enough intrigue here to keep patient mystery lovers on board for the sequel. (Aug.)

In August 1965, Franklin Warren barely has time to settle into his new home in Bethany, VT, when he's called to what could be a crime scene. The new state trooper doesn't know the area yet, but his first case is at a remote farm on Agony Hill. Hugh Weber is dead in his half-burned barn. Is he a murder victim, or did the farmer copy a suicidal farmer who killed himself to protest the coming interstate in Vermont? No one has anything good to say about the victim, an angry man who wrote letters protesting Vietnam and changes in Vermont. Weber's widow is left with four boys and a baby on the way, but she won't say much. Warren's mysterious neighbor Alice Bellows has ties to the intelligence community, and she seems to collect information, doling it out as appropriate. Then a second fire on Agony Hill throws Warren's investigation into chaos, and piles on more secrets. VERDICT The author of the Maggie D'arcy mysteries (A Stolen Child) launches a historical mystery series with a compassionate, vulnerable detective and a setting so vividly described it could be a character. Julia Spencer-Fleming fans will want to try this one.--Lesa Holstine