Atmosphere can be everything in a murder mystery, and Paula Munier goes to great lengths to ensure that “Home at Night” is filled with not only several dead bodies, but lots and lots of creepy Halloween vibes. The setting for the Mercy Carr mystery series is Vermont, where Mercy is from. She’s a veteran and her beloved dog Elvis was a working military dog for her fiancé who was killed in action. She lives in a beautiful cabin with Troy, the game warden she married, a young friend Amy and Amy’s baby, Amy’s boyfriend, Troy’s working dog Susie Bear, and a rescued cat. It’s a lot for a small house, so they’ve been house shopping.
The house that they fall in love with is a 150-year-old huge mansion on a large piece of land with several outbuildings. It needs a lot of work, but that’s not an obstacle to them. Even the long-standing rumors of a ghost on the property don’t deter them. What might be an obstacle, however, is the dead body they find in the library as they are looking at the house for the first time.
The house belonged to a famous poet, Euphemia Whitney-Jones, and it turns out that there are secrets there that Mercy will be the one to uncover. And with the fall leaves in New England turning brilliant shades of russet, red, yellow and orange, there are hordes of tourists in town. In addition, there are the locals who are suspected poachers selling endangered wildlife overseas, and the society of poets who gather, so suspects abound. As more dead bodies pile up over the course of these six days, the number of possible killers and possible motivations are numerous. There are
Levi Beecher, who was the caretaker of the old house for decades, and his sister Adah, a poet and organic gardener (including a poison plant garden), become allies as Mercy and Troy try to stay ahead of the bad guys. As with all of Munier’s books in this series, you can jump right in with this one. There’s no need to have read the previous novels, although learning the backstory of the characters is worthwhile. Munier catches us up on the important stuff (like Mercy and Troy’s wedding).
A lot happens to Mercy personally in this novel, and there’s one mystery Munier leaves tantalizingly unsolved. We strongly suspect that the ghostly presence in Mercy and Troy’s new house will be revisited in a future book. In the meantime, we can satisfy ourselves with the pleasure of reading about Mercy and Elvis, an almost superhero duo. And here’s a hint: if Elvis likes someone, you can be sure they aren’t a bad guy. He’s an excellent judge of character.
Munier is like a master juggler. She presents multiple murder victims, with various causes of death, and keeps all those “balls” in the air as we try to figure out the “who done it” part. It’s all good fun until there’s a dead body in the corn maze. Be forewarned.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.