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Kindle Edition
Amazon
Amazon
Marilyn Dalla Valle Mystery Writer
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Independently published
Pages: 401
Copyright: Feb 23, 2021
ISBN-13: 9798710771051
Westwind Secrets takes place in a dilapidated, Second Empire Victorian on Narragansett Bay. Murder, embezzlement, smuggled antiquities and illegitimate family ties weave a tapestry of deceit and death.
Devastated by her husband's infidelity, romance writer, Mysti Wade, loads her personal possessions into a rented trailer and sets off to claim her unseen inheritance with her rescued hound, Zak. Left by her estranged grandmother, the Second Empire Victorian mansion on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay is thirty years past prime condition. The estate has no money for maintenance and repairs. Stuck, with meager means and no place to go, Mysti stays, despite rumored ghosts. When a drifter, Harry Pearson, shows up during a severe thunderstorm, she agrees to let him live in the carriage house in exchange for work. Soon, the tumbledown, brick fortress, springs back to life with mowed lawns, tended gardens, rebuilt porches and painted trim, but invisible evil shrouds the property. Broke, and heartbroken by her failed marriage, Mysti abandons a romance novel to write a mystery, using reality for inspiration. Oblivious to danger and driven by an unexplainable force, she delves into her grandmother’s accidental death and squandered assets with skeptical eyes. Bodies drop to protect guilty secrets, some buried for generations. Walking a tightrope to stay alive and protect her dog, Mysti Wade exposes deceit, greed and murder. Justice is served!
Excerpt
There were no more tears to shed when the tires hit the gravel drive. Exhausted from hours of bumper to bumper traffic along I-95, Mysti was numb. All she wanted was to get on with her life. For the moment, Will’s betrayal was safely tucked away, in a box that she refused to open.
Dusk settled over the stone-walled fields as Mysti negotiated her nine-year-old Honda Civic, with rented, single-axle box trailer in tow, under the maple canopy. She rounded the curve and slammed on the brake. Before her loomed a dilapidated, three-story mansion. Fear lumped in her throat. It resembled the one in Psycho, except it was brick, instead of clapboard. Shuddering, she looked around for the Bates Motel. Satisfied that she had not taken a wrong turn into the classic, Alfred Hitchcock movie, she eased on the gas. The car crunched along the drive to the sidewalk.
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