Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In Archer Mayor's enthralling The Orphan's Guilt, a simple drunk driving arrest snowballs into a homicide investigation, as Joe Gunther and his VBI team peel back layer upon layer of history to learn the long-hidden truth.
John Rust is arrested for drunk driving at a routine stop by a Vermont state trooper. Looking to find mitigating circumstances, his lawyer hires a private eye to look into the recent death of the driver's younger brother. The brother died at twenty-eight due to medical issues arising from a childhood brain injury. But then it's revealed that the brain injury was the result of shaken baby syndrome, rendering his death a murder--bringing in Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team.
But that murder quickly becomes more than an ancient tale of avarice, betrayal, and murder as the vengeful memories of parties unknown are stirred to the point of violence. As the original subject, John Rust, disappears, Joe Gunther and his team must peel back the layers of history as the killings of the past lead quickly to the same in the present.
Synopsis
In Archer Mayor's intriguing new Vermont-based mystery, The Orphan's Guilt, a straightforward traffic stop snowballs into a homicide investigation after Joe Gunther and his fellow investigators peel back layer upon layer of history and personal heartbreak to learn a decades-old hidden truth.
John Rust is arrested for drunk driving by a Vermont state trooper. Looking to find mitigating circumstances, John's lawyer hires private eye Sally Kravitz to look into the recent death of John's younger brother, purportedly from a childhood brain injury years earlier. But what was the nature of that injury, and might its mechanism point more to murder than to natural causes? That debate brings in Joe Gunther and his team.
Gunther's efforts quickly uncover an ancient tale of avarice, betrayal, and vengeance that swirled around the Rust boys growing up. Their parents and the people they consorted with--forgotten, relentless, but now jolted to action by this simple set of circumstances--emerge with a destructive passion. All while the presumably innocent John Rust mysteriously vanishes with no explanation.