Deadly Nightshade

A Martha's Vineyard Mystery

By: Cynthia Riggs

Narrated by: Davina Porter

Martha's Vineyard has been home to Victoria Trumbull for most of her 92 years. Its magic, history, and picture-perfect calm are part of her very being. But one evening, Victoria hears something that doesn't quite belong: a scream followed by a splash and a sound of a car speeding away. She investigates and discovers a body on the outgoing tide.

Despite interruptions from her granddaughter Elizabeth, the harbormaster Domingo, a swarm of Island locals, and a few mysterious visitors, Victoria manages to get in a good bit of detective work and still finds time to cook her traditional Saturday night supper of Boston baked beans. She even concocts a scheme to trap the killer. But she'll need to act quickly, victim number two has already been found.

©2001 Cynthia Riggs (P)2006 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Wonderful....Here's hoping that Victoria Trumbull is solving crimes for many years to come." (Booklist)
"Victoria's mordant wit and easy cleverness add to this vastly entertaining debut series." (Library Journal)

Technical issues

This appears to have been a CD set first. Throughout the recording, the announcer says “this will be continued on Disc 3”, etc. Which isn’t a problem. BUT I think the CD was skipping when they digitized. In the middle of one scene it skips to elsewhere in the book - over and over again. It’s frustrating because you have no idea what you have missed. The reading is done well but with an odd mixing of accents and intonations that confuse the characters at times. But the story is interesting!

Absolutely terrific.

I loved this book. Interesting characters. Great story. Took me to a place I’ve never been. I felt transported.

unusual

A different type of mystery but enjoyable. Lots of interesting and unusual characters many much different than they first appeared to be. must pay attention to keep up with the plot.

Just delightful!

What an excellent story and performance. So nice to have a mature heroine. Can't wait to listen to the next one,

Well...

Too many swear words, which don't contribute to the story.! Good story tho😊 Love Davina Porter!

Not my type of book

Was hard to keep my interest in this book. Just not my type of book

What horse hockey is this?

Really poorly thought out, plotless and demeaning to 90 year olds. An insult to the intellect and a boring listen. Sorry I wasted a credit and all I can say is I kept expecting the "story" to redeem itself which is why I kept listening.

very. very, good book.

Davina Porter did a wonderful job of narrating. Cynthia Riggs wrote a great book. I really enjoyed this book. The characters were really interesting and I always enjoy the humor in these mysteries. The mystery it self was far better than most of these series.

British words and accents; WHY?!?

Listening to this is an incredibly confusing and frustrating experience. A bunch of the words and some of the phrasing are distinctly British. Also, the narrator speaks with a British accent, including voicing some of the characters with various British accents. (Some are voiced quite well in believable American accents, which is a WONDERFUL surprise, although no-one is given a proper regional accent.) The story itself is quite good; reading it silently would probably be a lot less frustrating, but there would still be the British wording to deal with. Oddly, one of the non-American wordings is saying “black” as a derogatory term for Latinx; I’ve never even read a British book that does that. Given the widespread use in the U.S. of 2 other bigoted terms for Latinx, the use of “black” instead is particularly strange. Even using “black” as a discriminatory word at all is very odd; Black is a proud, identity word for Americans who are actually Black.

Felt like our heroine was not as smart as usual

Felt like our heroine was not as smart as usual..is Ms Riggs beginning to lose interest ?