Land Kills

From Kirkus Reviews New York City editor Mitch Stevens, brought to Vermont for the summer to relieve his ailing friend Ham Johnson as editor of the Southborough Courier, soon finds himself up to his neck in murder (a realestate agent, a diabetic professor, a Russian violinist). Behind all three deaths: a few leading citizens attempts to clear away the obstacles from a proposed ski resort and retail outlet. One of these citizens is the Couriers publisher, and the most entertaining scenes in this first novel show Mitch laboring to do his job without destroying the newspaper or the town. Not much mystery, despite all those murders, though the pointed smalltown editing vignettes are bound to enliven the promised series. Copyright 1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description Looking at land in rural Vermont for a vacation home, Mitch Stevens, a journalism professor, discovers the body of a murdered real estate agent From Publishers Weekly A projected detective series starring newspaperman Mitch Stevens gets off to a sparkling start with this portrayal of a small college town targeted by developers. Mitch, a journalism prof and former New York City newspaperman, arrives in Southborough, Vt., home of a celebrated summer music festival, to fill in for an ailing friend who edits the oldfashioned local paper. Mitch is drawn to the area and its townspeople, including exhippies from the 60s, who are wary of flatlanders but hungry for their dollars. While looking for property to buy, he stumbles across the body of real estate agent Vera Tolvey, missing since the previous fall. Skeptical that any local would stray into the woods during hunting season without wearing a brightly colored vest, Mitch starts to investigate other unusual deaths, escapes an attempt on his own life and finally nails one of the many suspects. It looks as if likable, knowledgeable Mitch and actress wife Val, a woman of intoxicating sensuality, will become Vermont fixtures whose subsequent adventures readers will eagerly await. Nat Brandt is a former journalist and onetime PW editorinchief; his wife, Yanna, is a film writer and producer. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Despite its New England surroundings, welldrawn plot, and good intentions, this cooperative effortmeant to be the first in a projected seriesfails to rise above the mundane. Journalism professor Mitch Stevens subs for sick friend Ham Johnson as editorinchief of a small Vermont newspaper, but soon after arriving he discovers the body of a longmissing real estate agent. Pedestrian, emotionless prose, too much description, and an oldhat sequence of events place this on the back burner.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.