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The Alpine Zen

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The picturesque town of Alpine in the foothills of Washington state’s Cascade Mountains—home to Emma Lord and her weekly newspaper The Alpine Advocate—has long charmed and enthralled mystery lovers. Now, with The Alpine Zen, Mary Daheim has at last reached the anticipated letter of Z. Her legion of avid armchair sleuths will relish this deliciously gripping novel.
 
As an early summer heat wave beats down on Alpine, Emma and her staff are treading very lightly. For unfathomable reasons, the paper’s House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, is in a major snit, refusing to speak to her colleagues, or even her boss. So when a peculiar young woman walks in claiming her parents have been murdered, and that she’s in mortal danger, too, it fits right in with the rest of the craziness. Then, to the utter bafflement of her colleagues, Vida vanishes without a word to anyone. And just when Emma and her husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, start to unsnarl these tangles, a male body, dead too long to identify, surfaces at the town dump—making what seemed merely weird feel downright sinister. Has the hot weather driven everyone nuts, or are cold-blooded forces committing deadly misdeeds?
 
The Alpine Zen tingles with all the mystery and allure that only Mary Daheim’s brand of small-town life can provide. Gossip, love affairs, feuding, and plenty of dirty secrets make for an intriguing adventure every Alpine fan will want to read all about.
Praise for The Alpine Zen
 
“A complex plot and a cast of vivid characters will keep readers turning pages.”Publishers Weekly
 
“Lively and satisfying.”Library Journal
 
Praise for Mary Daheim and her Emma Lord mysteries
 
“Always entertaining.”The Seattle Times
 
“Mary Daheim writes with wit, wisdom, and a big heart. I love her books.”—Carolyn Hart
 
“Daheim writes . . . with dry wit, a butter-smooth style, and obvious wicked enjoyment.”The Oregonian
 
“The characters are great, and the plots always attention-getting.”—King Features Syndicate
 
“Even the most seasoned mystery fans are caught off-guard by [Daheim’s] clever plot twists.”BookLoons
 
“Witty one-liners and amusing characterizations.”Publishers Weekly
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 23, 2015
      Set in 2005, Daheim’s engrossing 26th and final mystery featuring Alpine, Wash., newspaper publisher Emma Lord (after 2014’s The Alpine Yeoman) finds Emma worried about Vida Runkel, her House & Home editor at the Alpine Advocate. Vida is despondent over her grandson, Roger Hibbert, who’s serving a four-year prison term for luring teenage girls into prostitution. But Emma, happily married to Sheriff Milo Dodge for nearly a year, is soon occupied with the plight of another woman, Ren Rawlings, a high school art teacher in San Luis Obispo, Calif., where Ren settled with her adoptive parents at age 10. Ren, whose mother gave her up at birth, is sure that her mother was murdered, probably in Alpine, where she intends to stay until
      she finds the killer. A complex plot and a cast of vivid characters will keep readers turning the pages. Series fans will be sorry to see the last of Emma, Milo, and company.

    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2015

      All is not well in Alpine, WA, in 2005, despite its picturesque mountain setting. Emma Lord, publisher of the local Alpine Advocate, tries to juggle a growing personal feud with her friend and fellow journalist Vida Runkel and the arrival of Ren Rawlings, a strange young woman who claims that her hippie parents were murdered years ago in the town (despite a dearth of actual evidence). Still settling into her new marriage to Sheriff Milo Dodge, Emma would rather concentrate on running the newspaper than keep tabs on two equally crazy women. Then a body turns up in the town dump and all hell breaks loose. Ren is convinced the corpse is connected to her bizarre quest to solve her parents' murder and tells Emma she thinks her life is in danger now. At the same time, Vida vanishes, leading Emma to worry that something more sinister is going on than just a spat between friends. VERDICT In this lively and satisfying 26th and final installment of her long-running series (after 2014's The Alpine Yeoman), Daheim brings her vivid cast of small-town characters full circle. Even after a full alphabet's worth of adventure, readers will be sorry to see the last of Emma, Milo, and the rest of the Alpine community. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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