Cynthia Riggs gives us the story of how Victoria Trumbell, the energetic nonagenarian amateur sleuth, first came to be a police deputy. While a conflict ensues between the town's retiring minister and his successor, both named Jack, four parishioners have unexpectedly died after being sent anonymous food baskets.

Victoria Trumbull, ninety-two-year-old native of Martha's Vineyard, is savoring the sea air over Vineyard Sound with her granddaughter, Elizabeth, when she spots a person who seems in trouble near the top of the cliff. Elizabeth goes for help, but it's too late—the man dies before he can be rescued. The man had been hired as a consultant to see whether a site's soil could support a sewage system for a possible casino. The police call it an accident,...

"When 92-year-old poet/sleuth Victoria Trumbull takes her city-bred tenant Zack Zeller on a nature walk on one of Martha's Vineyard's conservation areas and shows him a mushroom she calls black trumpet of death, he's sure he's found the way to rid himself of his troublesome girlfriend, Samantha. But the mushrooms he's given Samantha end up on her daddy's dinner table, and Zack, one of the invited guests, is sure he's doomed the diners to an untimely...