No good deeds go unpunished in Pomeroy's high-energy second Abby Silvernale whodunit (after 2006's The Dark End of Town
). Abby, a young widow who waits tables at the InnBetween in Bantam, N.Y., drives flamboyant travel writer Germaine LeClair home after a car accident, only to see the very drunk Germaine threaten her 92-year-old adoptive father, Norman Smith, with a gun. Germaine is visiting her old hometown either to renew her ties with her sisters and Norman, a famous sculptor suffering from Alzheimer's, or to kill him because she suspects him of murdering her adoptive mother, Wanda. By chance, Abby has just been asked to work as Norman's “amanuensis,” a position from which she furtively investigates Wanda's death and Germaine's past. Abby's a lovable, loose cannon sleuth who does what she wants when she wants, poking and prodding until she finds the truth. (Sept.)
