Pickard, Nancy

The Virgin of Small Plains: A Novel

Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl–the “Virgin of Small Plains”–inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.

But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men–Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist–all seem to be hiding the details of that night?

Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby–never having resolved her feelings for Mitch–is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.

Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences in award-winning author Nancy Pickard’s remarkable novel of suspense. Wonderfully written and utterly absorbing, The Virgin of Small Plains is about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence . . . and the possibility of redemption.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Hidden Staircase (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, No 2)

In seeking to solve the mysterious happenings in an old stone mansion, Nancy uses her courage and powers of deduction and tackles a situation that would have appalled a far older person.

Naked Came the Phoenix

The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

A DINNER TO DIE FOR

Summoned from her Arizona ranch to take charge of her teenage great-nephew and his twin sister, Genia Potter takes a rental on the Rhode Island coast. Old acquaintance Stanley Parker is only too happy to welcome her. And soon Genia is busily preparing for the tasting party that she and Stanley are hosting that evening at her cottage.

An avid cook and recipe collector, Stanley has already roped Genia into collaborating on The Secret Ingredient Cookbook, chock-full of Rhode Island culinary mysteries. Now is their chance to test some recipes and solicit others from each of the invited. Stanley has carefully selected six guests. And each has been asked to contribute a recipe with one secret ingredient. Genia asks no questions–until the lobster bisque is cold and all but one are present. Where is Stanley? Dead. And unlamented. Has one of the guests concocted a secret recipe for murder? Everyone has a motive. And everyone has a secret–including Genia’s troubled great-nephew, the prime suspect. . .

The Blue Corn Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery (Eugenia Potter Mysteries)

"When she did reach the cafe, she bought her hot sandwich and took it back outside to her car, so that she could sit there and stare at the landmark and think about the Tony Hillerman mystery she had just read. It was set all around the great rock. As she pondered it, recalling scenes from the book, she was glad to leave it to authors like him to find and solve the murderous mysteries of the great Southwest. She'd had her own brushes with homicidal individuals in the past. That was enough--more than enough for a woman who desired only to be a doting grandmother, a good friend, a competent rancher, a bit of a needlepoint whiz, and a plain country cook." The "great rock" is Shiprock; the Tony Hillerman book in question is probably The Fallen Man; and the woman hoping for a crime-free life is Genia Potter, the memorable character first created by Virginia Rich and then continued after Rich's death by Nancy Pickard. As she did in The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders, Pickard uses characters and plot suggestions left by Rich to create a solid, comfortable mystery of the sort usually classified as a "cozy." But even if you're not a cozy lover, you'll probably be enticed by the setting (an archeological camp near the wondrous Mesa Verde National Park, home of the elaborate, mysteriously abandoned Indian villages), by the characters (some tough and interesting women of varying ages, each with her own reasons for visiting the area), the good food served by a feisty cook named Bingo (the cornbread and cream cheese sticks sound particularly succulent), and even the plot--which involves two murders and the apparent disappearance of 16 teenagers from Texas. --Dick Adler

Kernels of Truth....

When Eugenia Potter stumbles upon some ancient pottery shards on her ranch, she feels a profound connection with the past.  And a deep desire to learn more about the relics.  Now, she's heeding the call of her soul--by visiting an archaeological camp amid the magnificent cliff dwellings of Colorado's Mesa Verde.

But strange things are happening at Mesa Verde, from the director's increasing mental confusion to a visitor's grisly death.  Even a Talking Circle--a traditional ritual facilitated by the passing around of an ear of blue corn--doesn't reveal the source of the trouble.  And when a busload of teenagers on a hiking trip disappears without a trace, Mrs. Potter begins some digging... to unearth a cruel scheme, a long-buried secret, and the deadly fruits of a killer's dark hungers.

The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Third Annual Collection

The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery (Eugenia Potter Mysteries)

The Whole Truth

With The Whole Truth, Nancy Pickard taps neatly into our national fascination with true crime in a daring novel that seems structurally and philosophically at odds with the conventional mystery story. We know, apparently, "who did it"--as do most true crime readers. People who pick up Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, for example, are usually aware that Ted Bundy was the man responsible for the murders she chronicles. We come to those texts after the fact, as it were; we search not for perpetrator, but for motivation, for explanation. How could these things have happened? What sort of monsters must such criminals be? Pickard's is just such an exploration: it opens with the conviction of one Raymond Raintree for the murder of six-year-old Natalie McCullen, a crime that has shocked South Florida. Marie Lightfoot is in attendance, waiting for the words that will bring to an end The Little Mermaid, the book she is writing about the McCullen case.

However, though it appears her conclusion is written, Marie is deeply worried about the rest of her book: "[Raintree] has no past that anybody, including me, has been able to find. This is not good news for a true crime writer with a book due on her editor's desk in two weeks." But when Ray escapes just after the verdict is read, Marie must accelerate her quest for Ray's actual and emotional origins. Her search has repercussions that lie far beyond the successful completion of her book; she alone can prevent Ray from killing again. Her questions, and their answers, will take her from Florida to the American heartland, from sunshine and palm trees to an unspeakable history of abduction and abuse.

In an intriguing and effective narrative device, Pickard alternates chapters of her "own" text with chapters from The Little Mermaid. This structural twinning hints at the plurality of experience, of the conflicting stories that we create to situate ourselves and others; in realizing that writers must sift through the truth, or truths, to create a coherent narrative, the reader must also sift through the sometimes dovetailing, sometimes elliptical relationship between Pickard's and Lightfoot's stories. The strategy is not wholly successful; at times Pickard introduces elements that lead nowhere, such as Marie's uneasy acceptance of her own parents' disappearance years before; at other times, an apparent impulse to accelerate the action serves only to accentuate gaping holes in the plot. But these are minor complaints; Pickard's novel is, in its quiet fashion, an appealing novelty at the intersection of truth and fiction. --Kelly Flynn

"Nancy Pickard pushes at the presumed limits of [crime fiction]" said the Los Angeles Times Book Review, praising the award-winning creator of the Jenny Cain mysteries. Now, Pickard blurs the line between fiction and reality in a novel of gripping intensity, and premieres a superb new heroine: true-crime author Marie Lightfoot. For her next surefire bestseller, Marie is covering the trial of a Florida killer -- a case that penetrates her own life, layer by disturbing layer.

Whether real like Ted Bundy, or imagined like Hannibal Lecter, few killers of our time are in the same league as Raymond Raintree. And as he stands flanked by lawyers in a Florida courtroom, waiting to be convicted for the murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, Marie Lightfoot is taking it all in. A small, gutsy blonde renowned for her true-crime bestsellers, Marie knows the graphic and disturbing case will make her best book yet -- because Raintree's shocking crime, vile beyond imagining, is also impossible to turn away from. But there is something about the case -- and Raintree's involvement -- that bothers her.

No one knows where Raintree, a man as slight and immature as a preteen boy, took Natalie after he abducted her. No one knows how Natalie -- bright, independent, and with no fear of the dark -- could be lured into a stranger's boat on a lonely waterway. And only one witness saw a man who may have been Raintree motoring along in a water taxi on the night Natalie disappeared.

Even if the police can't provide answers, Marie intends to leave no loose ends. Starting with a prison meeting with Raintree, the steely-nerved writer follows a twisted path that leads to Natalie's parents, to a coincidence that doesn't quite gel, and to a place she has resisted all her life: the dark recesses of her own soul, where she hides the secrets of her own lost past.

When Raymond escapes, Marie -- a curious contradiction of celebrity author and introspective loner -- becomes a sitting duck for a killer who just might be smart enough to outwit her. And evil enough to take her to hell before she dies.

A masterpiece of psychological suspense, The Whole Truth is a compelling look at our fascination with the horrific crimes of our time. Nancy Pickard's characters are as close to flesh and blood as fiction can get -- and her writing is as close to perfection.

True-crime author Marie Lightfoot is sure that covering the murder trial of Florida serial killer Raymond Raintree will guarantee her next bestseller. But when she meets Raintree and starts to follow a twisted path that leads to the young victim's parents -- and ultimately to the dark recesses of her own soul -- she becomes a sitting duck for a killer who just might be smart enough to outwit her.

Twilight

Malice Domestic 3 (Malice Domestic , No 3)