Riggs, Cynthia

The paperwhite narcissus by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
16 editions published between 2005 and 2010 in English and held by 1,124 libraries worldwide
In this fifth book in the Victoria Trumbull series, the ninety-two-year-old sleuth finds herself embroiled in a series of murders after she is fired from her job as West Tisbury correspondent for The Island Enquirer (the editor claims the newspaper needs a younger look). Victoria, determined to show that age is no barrier to news papering, immediately throws her weight behind The Grackle, intent on turning the two-page West Tisbury newsletter into a formidable competitor of the Enquirer. And it looks as though she will. In the meantime, the Enquirer's narcissistic editor has been receiving a series of obituaries, each naming him as the deceased. He would dismiss them as a sick joke, but the obituaries follow the actual deaths of people close to him. Rather than going to the police, he grudgingly rehires Victoria to uncover the identity of the obituary writer. Victoria knows almost everybody on the Island, and she may be the only person who can solve the mystery before the editor needs a genuine obituary of his own.

Deadly nightshade by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
14 editions published between 2001 and 2010 in English and Undetermined and held by 1,108 libraries worldwide
"Victoria Trumbull has lived most of her ninety-two years on the Island. Martha's Vineyard, its magic and its history, is part of the texture of her life. Like other Islanders, she knows the sounds of the sea in calm and stormy weather and she knows the sounds that do not belong. One evening while Victoria waits on the dock for her granddaughter to return with the harbormaster, she hears a chilling scream followed by a splash and the sound of tires skidding on sand. She investigates and discovers a mutilated body floating on the outgoing tide."--Jacket.

Jack in the pulpit by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
12 editions published between 2004 and 2010 in English and held by 1,106 libraries worldwide
With Martha's Vineyard plagued by religious conflict between the outgoing minister of the local church and his successor, elderly Victoria Trumbull becomes concerned about a series of unexpected deaths.

The cranefly orchid murders by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
16 editions published between 2002 and 2010 in English and held by 1,096 libraries worldwide
When lonely recluse Phoebe Eldredge decides to sell 200 acres of beautiful, unspoiled land to a developer rather than leave it to her crass, rude descendents, the Conservation Trust enlists 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull, amateur sleuth, as someone who will not be suspected, to search that land for an endangered plant, any endangered plant, because the state of Massachusetts prohibits bulldozing rare plant habitats. With her trusty eleven-year-old after-school assistant, Victoria searches out a patch of endangered cranefly orchids. Her first find, though, is the body of one Montgomery Mausz, the developer's rather dubious attorney.

The cemetery yew by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
11 editions published between 2003 and 2010 in English and held by 1,037 libraries worldwide
When the coffin of a Norton girl goes missing, Victoria Trumbull becomes increasingly alarmed as everyone connected to the coffin is brutally murdered, a situation that appears to be related to a mysterious yew tree.

Indian pipes by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
10 editions published between 2006 and 2010 in English and Undetermined and held by 945 libraries worldwide
"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, but his death is just the first in what becomes a series of baffling murders, involving a Harley Davidson and Indian motorcyclists' rally, tribal disputes, squabbling developers, and deeply buried family secrets. Victoria, who was named a deputy police officer after she proved how valuable she was to fighting crime on the Island, is on the case, assisted by her Wampanoag friend Dojan Minnowfish. Her official position is giving her the confidence to take risks that horrify police chief Casey O'Neill. But Victoria compensates for her physical limitations by out-thinking the bad guys."--The publisher.

Shooting star : a Martha's Vineyard mystery by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
3 editions published between 2004 and 2009 in English and held by 836 libraries worldwide
"Ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull becomes embroiled in controversy at the community theater on Martha's Vineyard. The new artistic director has announced plans to replace local amateur talent with off-Island professionals, and the cast and crew react murderously." The group is producing Ms. Trumbull's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The production is endangered when someone begins committing crimes apparently based on the scenes in the adaptation.

Death and honesty by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
3 editions published in 2009 in English and held by 757 libraries worldwide
Victoria Trumbull, the ninety-two-year-old poet/sleuth, discovers a neighbor's body in the home of one of the three town assessors. The assessors have been skimming off tax money from wealthy landowners and stashing it in their own special retirement funds. Then the private pilot of the not-so-holy clergyman husband of one of these landowners is found dead, floating in his employer's pond, his face gnawed by snapping turtles. Finally, searching for old documents in the attic of Town Hall, Victoria discovers a third body, that of the long-missing assessors clerk. In order to tie all the threads together and solve the murders, Cynthia again teams up with her old friend and rival, Emery Meyer, now working as the landowner's chauffeur.

Touch-me-not : a Martha's Vineyard mystery by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
4 editions published between 2010 and 2011 in English and held by 718 libraries worldwide
A mathematical knitters group is working on a coral reef quilt for a competition to draw attention to global warming. When a telephone stalker begins preying on their members, they turn to Victoria for help.

The bee balm murders : a Martha's Vineyard mystery by Cynthia Riggs( Book )
4 editions published in 2011 in English and held by 646 libraries worldwide
When a body is found in the trench where men are laying a fiber-optic cable across Martha's Vineyard, Victoria Trumbell's new boarder tells her he recognizes the dead man as someone who was a potential investor.