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Last Room at the Cliff's Edge: A Detective Linda Mystery (Detective Linda Mysteries) (Volume 1)
Mark McNease, author
Retired homicide detective Linda Sikorsky and her wife Kirsten McClellan head to Maine for a long weekend of rest, relaxation and rewrites as Kirsten finishes drafting her first novel. Bad weather alters their plans, forcing them to stop for the night at the Cliff’s Edge, a motel known for secrecy and indiscretion. Something murderous goes bump in the night, sending the women on a search for justice when a young reporter’s body is found dumped and violated on a back road. A road Linda must now go down, no matter where it takes her, or what it reveals.
Reviews
This suspenseful series launch from McNease (the Kyle Callahan Mysteries) introduces retired homicide detective Linda Sikorsky. Linda has opened a “vintage everything” store in New Hope, Pa., where she lives with her wife, aspiring writer Kirsten McClellan, whose first novel features a lead based on Linda. But Linda’s past turns out not to be past. When they get caught in a torrential rainstorm while driving to a writer’s retreat in Maine that Kirsten is eager to attend, Kirsten wants to keep going. Linda persuades her that they need to stop for the night, which they do at the seedy Cliff’s Edge motel. Linda is suspicious of the creepy desk clerk, Lenny Winfrow, and that feeling is only intensified after she hears some odd noises from an adjoining room that Lenny insisted was vacant, but which the reader knows is occupied by an ambitious small-town journalist, Cayley Drees, who’s following up an anonymous tip. Plausible sleuthing and smart characterizations combine for a winner. (BookLife)
