Saturday 29 June 2024

Dead Man's Leap (Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery Book # 2) by Tina deBellegarde

Rushing waters...dead bodies...secrets...

As Bianca St. Denis and her neighbors scour their attics for donations to the charity rummage sale, they unearth secrets as well as prized possessions. Leonard Marshall's historic inn hosts the sale each year, but it is his basement that houses the key to his past. When an enigmatic antiques dealer arrives in town, he upends Leonard's carefully reconstructed life with an impossible choice that harkens back to the past.

Meanwhile, when a storm forces the villagers of Batavia-on-Hudson to seek shelter, the river rises and so do tempers. Close quarters fuel simmering disputes, and Sheriff Mike Riley has his work cut out for him. When the floods wash up a corpse, Bianca once again finds herself teaming up with Sheriff Riley to solve a mystery. Are they investigating an accidental drowning or something more nefarious?

Dead Man's Leap explores the burden of secrets, the relief of renunciation, and the danger of believing we can outpace our past.  (Summary via Goodreads)


GOOSEBUMPS !!!!  

While reading Dead Man's Leap, the second book in the Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery series by Tina deBellegarde you will experience a number of emotions and may at times get goosebumps !!!

There is a lot going on in Dead Man's Leap that will keep you engrossed in the story and on the edge of your seat .... and deBellegarde knows how to keep you turning the pages.

In Dead Man's Leap the quaint little village of Batavia-on-Hudson is getting ready for their annual charity rummage sale which brings a lot of people into town including antique dealers looking for some good antiques at low prices.  Unfortunately a storm rolls in and one of the antique dealers goes missing when everyone else is heading to the community center to wait out the rain and wind.  When there is a low in the storm a few search parties are sent out and they find the missing antique dealer dead at the bottom of the cliff of Dead Man's Leap.

Joel, the deceased antique dealer, isn't a stranger to the village and some of the people have dark hidden secrets with him that may now come to the surface with his death .... and some lives with be changed forever.

But that's not all that is going on in this story .... when Joel's body is recovered at the bottom of Dead Man's Leap, a necklace and some long buried bones are uncovered as well.  And when Sheriff Mike Riley begins investigating, he listens to many confessions of a long ago story but all the versions are slightly different.  Luckily Mike has Bianca to help him work through some of the stories and help him however she can.

Dead Man's Leap is a very emotion grabbing story.  There is a lot going on with Joel's death, finding old bones, the village dealing with destruction from the storm, people's emotions, the relationships and the strength of some and the decline of others, the secrets, always the secrets .... but you wouldn't want it any other way !!!


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