Series debut
Sarah Stewart Taylor starts a new series with Agony Hill, following Detective Franklin Warren as he tries to start his life over again. Set in the tiny Vermont town of Bethany in the 1960s, the novel immediately plunges the reader into small town, rustic life, and realities of the struggling farmers there. The characters are rich, and each of the three point of view characters especially get filled out into living, breathing people.
When Warren arrives in town, he gets little time to settle in, or even unpack. Immediately, there is a barn fire up on Agony Hill. At first, it seems like a clear-cut suicide. The victim, Hugh Weber, was always one for making statements, and he was deeply against the highway set to go through town. The barn was latched from the inside, too. With no alternate exits, it seems clear that Weber got drunk and took his ideals a little too far.
However, this doesn’t sit quite right with Warren. Not only does something seem off about the case, but he wants to prove himself as the town’s new, and first, detective. He also finds himself drawn to Weber’s young widow, Sylvie, who everyone in town describes as “unusual.” In addition, his new neighbor Alice Bellows is not quite what she seems. As he gets deep into the case, and more events begin to happen, they become friends, and Warren wants less and less to inconvenience Sylvie.
The world in Agony Hill is so real that I was happy to see that it’s the start of a new series. These characters haven’t told their full stories yet, and readers will want to see more of them. Warren himself is interesting and flawed, and a contrast to the often stoic detectives in similar works. If the reader is looking for a new cast of characters that feel like friends, this is a great place to look. – Margaret Agnew