Sealed Off (A Maine Clambake Mystery Book 8) by Barbara Ross

This is an intriguing little mystery by Barbara Ross.The characters are a tight- knit family, running a business, called Snowden Family Clambake which caters to Tourists. They are provided a day away which includes a clambake and a tour on the Jacquie II. The clambake this year has a lot of tension due to Emmy, a worker, who is attractive to two men or so it seems.  Julia Snowden, is the main voice and through her we meet a lot of the locals and her family. The food sounds first rate too... lobsters, soft-shelled clams...some of Maine's finest.  But murder has its own way of settling a score and when a body is found near the wood pile of Windsholme, the family mansion on Morrow Island... a lot of things from the past are stirred up.

Part of the heart of this mystery is a Journal by Lilly Smythe, a Governess sent to the Island in 1898, to tutor two brothers. Her sealed room, unknown and hidden is discovered by the family during a remodel. Spooky- though because her clothes are still there and her wire-framed spectacles. The family shows Margarete, who is in her 90's, around the Mansion. Finally, we are treated to remnants of the Journal pages and the last remaining days of Lilly. What happened to her?

I enjoy books set in Maine. The scenery is on the coast and set with long days of sailing and lots of historical settings. The extra ingredient is a good "whodunit" set among these families and neighbors. The hard work the fishermen endure and the descriptions of local haunts and people are vivid. The pace picks up in the last chapters, when we discover that all is not as it seems. But will the murders stop at one and who is doing them?

Barbara Ross has given us another well- paced mystery with a cast of characters you want to know. I am giving it five stars.


Blurb:

Early October is “winding down” time in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, but there’s nothing relaxing about it for Julia Snowden. Between busloads of weekend leaf peepers at the Snowden Family Clambake and a gut renovation of the old mansion on Morrow Island, she’s keeping it all together with a potentially volatile skeleton crew—until one of them turns up dead under the firewood.

When the Russian demo team clearing out the mansion discovers a room that’s been sealed off for decades, Julia’s baffled as to its purpose and what secrets it might have held. Tensions are already simmering with the crew, but when one of the workers is found murdered, things come to a boil. With the discovery of another body—and a mysterious diary with Cyrillic text in the hidden room—the pressure’s on Julia to dig up a real killer fast. But she’ll have to sort through a pile of suspects, including ex-spouses, a spurned lover, and a recently released prisoner, to fish out one clammed-up killer.