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Saturday, March 17, 2012

Pre-Pub Book Buzz: The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields

I've got an abundance of really exciting new historical mysteries/thrillers in my TBR, including Kieran Shields's The Truth of All Things, due out Mar 27. This is the first in a new series and sounds fabulous, so of course I did a happy dance when a copy arrived in the mail.

Here's the info from the publisher:

...the first book in a promising new mystery series from debut author Kieran Shields – THE TRUTH OF ALL THINGS (Crown; on sale March 27, 2012), a page-turning tale of ritualistic serial killings in Maine in the late 1800s that appear to be inspired by the Salem witch trials.


Shields paints a picture of late 19th century New England and its environs with all the spookiness of a classic Stephen King novel and introduces readers to a pair of unforgettable protagonists who call to mind the great Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson.


Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, in the summer of 1892, a grisly new witch hunt is beginning....

When newly appointed Deputy Marshal Archie Lean is called in to investigate a prostitute's murder in Portland, Maine, he's surprised to find the body laid out like a pentagram and pinned to the earth with a pitchfork. He's even more surprised to learn that this death by "sticking" is a traditional method of killing a witch.

Baffled by the ritualized murder scene, Lean secretly enlists the help of historian Helen Prescott and brilliant criminalist Perceval Grey. Distrusted by officials because of his mixed Abenaki Indian ancestry, Grey is even more notorious for combining modern investigative techniques with an almost eerie perceptiveness. Although skeptical of each other's methods, together the detectives pursue the killer's trail through postmortems and opium dens, into the spiritualist societies and lunatic asylums of gothic New England.

Before the killer closes in on his final victim, Lean and Grey must decipher the secret pattern to these murders--a pattern hidden within the dark history of the Salem witch trials.

I hope everyone's weekend has started off wonderfully. I'm headed to the porch to read in the sun!

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