‘Death in the Orchard’ by M.K. Graff

Published by Bridle Path Press,
12 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-73216308-9 (PB)

Trudy Genova is looking forward to a holiday from her job as the nurse at a film company in Manhattan and plans to travel to Scoharie in the Catskills to stay at the apple orchard owned and run by her family. She has invited her boyfriend, Ned O’Malley, who is an NYPD detective, to go with her. Trudy has several reasons for her visit: Ned has already met her mother, Hildy, but Trudy wishes to introduce him to her two older brothers, Ben and Rick, and Ben’s wife, Gail, and Rick’s husband, Aiden. Also, she wants to attend Gail’s baby shower. As well as being her sister-in-law, Gail has been Trudy’s friend since early schooldays. However, Trudy has another reason to ask Ned to accompany her, one that she has no intention of admitting to her family unless she is successful. Trudy wants to discover the truth about her father’s death.

Eleven years ago Mario Genova had gone out to collect supplies for Trudy’s sixteenth birthday celebration but he did not return. Eventually he was discovered dead. He was lying in the railway depot and his skull had been fractured in two places. The shock to Mario’s family was terrible and it was compounded by the discovery that Mario had withdrawn all the money from two of their bank accounts and nobody had any idea what he had done with it. The family had been devastated by Mario’s death and it had taken a long hard struggle for Trudy’s mother and brothers to put the orchard back into a safe financial position. Although her family tried to shield Trudy as much as possible, she found it hard to recover from the death of her adored father.

She won a scholarship for nursing school and left home as soon as it was possible and, after she qualified, she moved to New York. Despite the distance between her and the place where her father died, Trudy has never been able to shake off her conviction that her father’s death had not been an accident and she still believes that he was murdered. She is desperate to find out the truth, but she is afraid that she and Ned will uncover evidence that the motive for Mario’s death and his reason for removing the family money is something that soils her father’s memory.

The visit to the family starts off very happily. Trudy’s family all get on with Ned and Trudy finds it possible to accept her mother’s new relationship with Trudy’s old High School English teacher, Bob, and when she sees how good they are together she feels glad that Hildy is no longer alone. The local police are co-operative and willing to tell Trudy and Ned anything they can about the investigation eleven years ago. Trudy realises that the earlier investigators had shared her doubts that Mario’s death was an accident. Their failure to solve the crime was not through negligence but through absence of evidence. They could discover no witnesses and also no motive for the murder of a man who, despite his hot temper when confronted by injustice, was liked and respected by everybody who knew him and loved by his friends and family.

The baby shower starts off joyfully and everyone is enjoying themselves until Rick goes back to the house he shares with Aidan, which is also in the grounds of the apple orchard, to collect some ice cream that Aiden had forgotten. On the veranda steps of the house Rick discovers a dead body and the victim has been shot. Now Trudy and Ned have two murders to investigate, one that happened eleven years ago and another that is a threat to the Genova family here and now, and they cannot escape the fear that Rick might be suspected of involvement in the crime. Ned is determined to keep Trudy safe, but she is equally determined not to be sidelined, even though the things that they discover may prove to be painful and, with a murderer at large, her persistence could also be extremely dangerous.

Death in the Orchard is the third novel featuring Trudy Genova. It is a superb series, and this is a delightful addition, taking Trudy and Ned out of New York to Trudy’s family home in the country and introducing her warm and loving family. This is a beautifully crafted, multi-viewpoint novel, with an intriguing plot and a cast of likeable, engaging characters, especially the two central protagonists. This is such a compelling book that I could not put it down and read it in two days. Death in the Orchard is a page turner that I wholeheartedly recommend.-----
Reviewer: Carol Westron

Marni Graff is the author of the Nora Tierney mystery series, set in the UK. She is also co-author of Writing in a Changing World, a primer on writing groups and critique techniques. A member of Sisters in Crime, Graff runs the NC Writers Read program in Belhaven and founded the group Coastal Carolina Mystery Writers. She has also published poetry, last seen in Amelia Earhart: A Tribute; her creative nonfiction has most recently appeared in Southern Women’s Her latest book is Death in the Orchard.    

http://auntiemwrites.com/

Carol Westron is a successful author and a Creative Writing teacher.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  Her first book The Terminal Velocity of Cats was published in 2013. Since then, she has since written 5 further mysteries. Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. To read the interview click on the link below. 

https://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/carol-westron.html www.carolwestron.com
To read a review of Carol latest book click on the title
Death and the Dancing Snowman