Nemo’s wonderful nose tells him many things. When, on his leash, he and I make a trip to the mailbox, the first thing he does is put his nose to the ground. He is like a metal detector, going here and there, sniffing. All those scents tell him who has been in the yard and when. Same is true when I’ve been near my grandchildren’s cat. Nemo knows as well as if I’d told him that I’ve been around Twitch the cat.
For that matter, Twitch’s small but powerful nose alerts him to the scent of Nemo on my jeans. These two, the dog and cat, know many things through the sense of scent.
Ned McNeil, in Murder By Moonlight, is on a trail too. She’s following some scents, some clues as to what might really have happened to Elmer Newton. Only thing is, the trail is cold. You see, the murder she is investigating happened fifty years ago.
The first place she looks is where the murder took place. That’s where Ned finds her first clue, but it is so unsatisfying as to be practically worthless except to pique her curiosity. The surprising thing about the clue is that it isn’t about Elmer Newton, but about Marvie Saunders, the murdered man’s wife. This points Ned into a new direction and she begins following Marvie’s trail.
As she passed through life, Marvie left a good many mementos of who she really was. Ned pieces together a picture of Marvie from the people who knew her, and writings she left.
It’s an interesting journey, this trip back fifty years. But, trailing a murderer is the thing Ned McNeil does best. Even if that trail is an old one.
Murder By Moonlight is a work in progress. To check out the first three books of Ned McNeil mysteries, Moonlight Can Be Murder, By the Fright of the Silvery Moon, and Moonstruck and Murderous, click on this link: Cozy Mysteries with an Extra Shiver.
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