The first review of the my first mystery

07/05/2010 Fiction
Murder in Caleb's Landing: A Third-Culture Kid Mystery
D-L Nelson, Five Star, $25.95 (364p) ISBN 978-1-59414-897-2
In this intriguing first in a new series from Nelson (Running from the Puppet Master), Annie Young, a 33-year-old contract tech writer born in the U.S. who's spent most of her life in Europe, returns to the States with her Geneva-based parents after her father inherits a house in Caleb's Landing, Mass. There her father and some of his friends persuade Annie, a passionate historian, to make a CD about "the founding of America the way it really was," but the program she produces, previewed at the town's elementary school, offends many with its evenhanded depiction of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Meanwhile, in the basement of their new house, Annie and her father discover a skeleton dressed in pre–Civil War rags and a diary written by a runaway slave. Later, Annie and her mother try to save a young woman from an abusive husband. The action moves at a fast clip to a dramatic and surprising conclusion. (Sept.)