Mad Season — Nancy Means Wright

Even without the mud, Ruth Willmarth has got her hands full. Her husband recently defected to New York City with another woman and left Ruth to manage the farm and the family. Then spring in this Vermont farming town takes a slippery and sinister turn when Ruth's elderly neighbor Lucien Larocque answers a knock at his door in the middle of the night. He opens it to a brutal attack. Larocque and his part-Indian wife, Belle, are beaten, and the smelly "barn" money that he kept hidden in his pockets and rafter holes rather than trust to a bank is stolen. Early the next morning, Ruth finds her neighbor lying in the mud by the side of the road and his wife, Belle, barely conscious on the kitchen floor. In spite of Ruth's best efforts, Belle dies from her wounds. Soon a string of barn burnings serves to put the grieving town further on edge. There is no telling when the mud will settle, but Ruth is determined to see that it does. With would-be lover Colm Hanna, a pun-loving Irish Realtor who doubles as the town mortician, Ruth slogs through the mud, the barn burnings, even the disappearance of her own son, as she tracks the murderer's muddy trail and puts an end to this mad season.