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Echoes among the stones / Jaime Jo Wright.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Minneapolis, Minnesota : Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group, [2019]Description: 378 pages ; 22 cmISBN:
  • 9780764233883
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: "A mystery begins when Aggie Dunkirk exhumes secrets and uncovers a crime her eccentric grandmother has been obsessing over. Decades earlier, after discovering her sister's body in the attic, Imogene Grayson longs for justice. Two women, separated by time, vow to find answers . . . no matter the cost"-- Provided by publisher.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Shelving location Call number Status Notes Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Phillipsburg Free Public Library Adult Fiction Adult Fiction FIC WRIGHT Available pap.ed. 36748002459008
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

After Aggie Dunkirk's career is unceremoniously ended by her own mistakes, she finds herself traveling to Wisconsin, where her grandmother, Mumsie, lives alone in her rambling old home. She didn't plan for how eccentric Mumsie has become, obsessing over an old, unsolved crime scene--even going so far as to re-create it in the dollhouse.

Mystery seems to follow her when she finds work as a secretary helping to restore the flooded historical part of the cemetery. Forced to work with the cemetery's puzzling, yet attractive archeologist, she exhumes the past's secrets and unwittingly uncovers a crime that some will go to any length to keep quiet--even if it means silencing Aggie.

In 1946, Imogene Grayson works in a local factory and has eyes on owning her own beauty salon. But coming home to discover her younger sister's body in the attic changes everything. Unfamiliar with the newly burgeoning world of criminal forensics and not particularly welcomed as a woman, Imogene is nonetheless determined to stay involved. As her sister's case grows cold, Imogene vows to find justice . . . even if it costs her everything.

"A mystery begins when Aggie Dunkirk exhumes secrets and uncovers a crime her eccentric grandmother has been obsessing over. Decades earlier, after discovering her sister's body in the attic, Imogene Grayson longs for justice. Two women, separated by time, vow to find answers . . . no matter the cost"-- Provided by publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A decades-old murder case brings together a grandmother and granddaughter in this excellent inspirational mystery from Wright (The House on Foster Hill). Imogene Grayson discovered her sister, Hazel, murdered in their attic in 1946 and has devoted her life to finding justice. Seventy years later, and no closer to knowing the truth, Imogene is a grumpy nonagenarian who's never gotten over the loss of her beloved sister. Imogene's granddaughter, Aggie Dunkirk, receives a letter from Imogene requesting a visit while she recovers from a broken hip. Grudgingly, Aggie complies, only to discover that Imogene has lied about her broken hip to gain Aggie's sympathy, there is a skeleton in her backyard, and she has a disturbing dollhouse that appears to be a recreation of a murder scene. In sections set in the mid-century, Imogene begins her investigation which quickly goes cold. In sections set in the present, Aggie takes a job restoring a flooded cemetery with handsome archaeologist Collin O'Shaughnessy. Together they discover secrets among the graves, along with roses with messages written on the petals. They soon realize someone wants them to stay away from the grave of Hazel Grayson, and when Aggie makes the connection to her grandmother, she dives fully into solving the mystery of Hazel's murder. Wright eloquently weaves in Imogene's faith and belief in redemption, and the prose easily jumps between the two eras as Aggie gets closer to the truth. Fans of Terri Blackstock will love this. Agent: Janet Kobobel, Books & Such (Dec.)

Booklist Review

Mill Creek, Wisconsin, is the last place Aggie Dunkirk wants to be after losing her job, but her estranged grandmother lives there, and she is the only family Aggie has left. When Aggie takes a temporary position remapping graves in a flood-damaged cemetery, sinister mysteries from the town's murderous past are raised from the dead. As secrets from her own family history are reawakened and strange messages torment them, Aggie and her grandmother dig for answers to a decades-old cold case. But it becomes terrifyingly clear that someone or something is determined to thwart their efforts. In a chilling tale that links 1946 and the present, Wright (The Curse of Misty Wayfair, 2019) conducts a haunting and profound examination of human grief. Again she shines in her unnerving encapsulation of small-town complexities, supernatural forces both sinister and saving, and persistent loyalty to the fascinating interconnectedness of a place's past and present. Its shocking passages are balanced by themes of justice and a reassuring message of faith that provide hope in the face of unspeakable loss and pain.--Kate Campos Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

An unemployed realtor confronts her grandmother's obsession with a decades-old crime.Wright (The Curse of Misty Wayfair, 2019, etc.) glosses over the reason Aggie Dunkirk was fired from her high-powered jobsomething to do with expired licenses for the agents she supervised. The real reason for her career's demise is to get her back home to live with her strong-willed, imperious grandmother Mumsie. Aggie finds work at a local cemetery trying to recatalog gravesites disturbed by a recent flood, a job that gives her the chance to meet Collin O'Shaughnessy, a charming archaeologist with an accent that places his background somewhere in the former British Empire. Collin helps her cope with the shock of finding a dollhouse diorama in her grandmother's attic depicting a young girl killed in her bedroom at the end of the Second World War. Wright toggles back and forth between Aggie's grisly discovery and the story of Imogene Grayson, sister of a girl also murdered in her bedroom at the end of the war, until the two narratives intersect. Both past and present stories feel seriously underrealized because both the settings and events are described mainly in terms of the feelings they provoke in the characters. Even physical traits, like Mumsie's flashing emerald eyes and Collin's glowing copper hair, seem proxies for emotions. Where will all this trauma lead? It takes forever to find out. Reads like therapy notes by a clinician who needs better supervision. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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