Los Angeles - May 08, 2006

Field Day

“A Field of Darkness,” by Cornelia Read

Families are full of secrets. Aunt Blanche’s indoor-helmet situation and the time Great-Grandpa Rogers gambled away the farm have been kept strictly hush-hush.

But what about that dog tag you found with your cousin’s name on it while investigating a murder that had gone unsolved for twenty years?

Oh, wait. That wasn’t you. That was Madeline Dare from Cornelia Read’s excellent debut novel, A Field of Darkness.

In the book, Maddie, who hails from tattered, old-money Long Island stock, loves her railroad-working husband but is somewhat bored by her life as a writer for the local Syracuse paper — until she comes across a set of dog tags that could implicate her cousin Lapthorne Townsend in a dusty homicide case. All of which, of course, shakes things up.

How it ends is only part of the fun; Read’s mystery is so engrossing, you’ll care just as much about the details along the way as you do the outcome.

Unlike the tale of how Cousin John-John overcame his bed-wetting problem.

Available online at amazon.com or your local bookstore.