BOOKLIFE.COM 67MYSTERY/THRILLER
Booth Island
D. Z. Church | Bodie Blue Books
347p, ebook, $3.99, ISBN 978-1-
7355208-1-0
Church’s (Perfidia) thrilling
mystery follows twenty-some-
thing Boothe Treader as she
revisits the Ontario lake where
she summered as a child — and
the site of her brother Roy’s
death 12 years earlier. Although
the death was ruled an accident,
most locals — including Boothe’s
old friends Mike, Meg, and
Penny, who all affectionately call Boothe “Boo” — agree that
Finn Sturdevant, an outsider to the tight-knit community,
caused Roy’s head injury and eventual drowning. Roy’s spirit
haunts Boo as she once again spends time on Booth Island, the
tiny piece of family land that she now owns. In trying to move
past Roy’s death, Boo uncovers unexpected secrets, learns of the
sinister, century-long history between the community’s fami-
lies, and encounters Finn himself.
Readers will be intrigued by the town’s air of mystery and
Boo’s conviction, as odd occurrences mount, that she’s being
gaslit. Boo takes a winding path that explores her family’s
violent Prohibition roots and leads her inadvertently to
discover the truth about the night that Roy died. The history,
particularly as it relates to present-day events, can at times be
tricky to follow, but Church’s hints of a coming revelation
(clues include a bloody bandana and a Photoshopped image of
Roy) push the reader forward. While the prose at times can be
choppy, Church crafts a mystery rich with unease and an exhil-
arating climax while also offering a bold portrait of Canadian
lake life.
The most enthralling
element of the mystery is the
way in which Church stirs
reader suspicion toward many
characters before ultimately
unmasking a villain. Boo
doesn’t know who to trust,
and neither will the reader.
This conflict intensifies when
she develops romantic feel-
ings for two different men,
both potentially suspects. The
wild, dark setting, unavenged
death, and complicated
history make Boo’s trip an
appealing mystery full of
suspense and intrigue.MYSTERY/THRILLER
Finding George
Washington: A Time
Travel Tale
Bill Zarchy | Roving Camera Press
396p, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-0-
984-91912-3
Zarchy’s sprawling and
suspenseful time-travel thriller
finds General George
Washington mysteriously
vanishing from Valley Forge in
1778 and stumbling into a San
Francisco dog park in the
summer of 2014. Thrown into the
deep end of a new reality, Washington encounters unsuspecting
twentysomething Timothy, and his dog, Nevada. Timothy
extends his hospitality, introducing Washington to toilets and
Miller Lite, but soon faces the tragic truth: Sinister powers and
unforeseen forces are at play, and it is up to Timothy and friends
to transport the first president back to his own time before all hell
breaks loose. Righting the destiny of the world means facing
assassins as cities collapse. Will they ever make it in time?
Zarchy takes full advantage of the premise’s opportunities for
poignancy and hilarity. Washington is thrown, for example, by
newfangled words like delicious, and declares during a discus-
sion of burritos, “You know I have become partial to the food of
Mexico so prevalent in this area. And I recognize that you are
using a French word, I believe, to indicate tastiness.” Exchanges
between Washington and the citizens of 2014 also touch on dark
historical truths, including the oppression of minorities and
Washington’s ownership of slaves. Despite Zarchy’s sincere
interest and supporting research, these discussions pepper the
story unevenly, without much
room to convincingly evolve.
Engaging action sequences
bridge major twists, though the
pacing flags due some extra-
neous detail. Zarchy parallels
the heroes’ efforts at sending
Washington back to the past
with recaps of the 2014 World
Series, in which the San
Francisco Giants bested the
Kansas City Royals. Baseball is a
dominant motif throughout,
lending convincing texture to
the story but never quite
connecting meaningfully to the
narrative’s themes. Still,
Zarchy’s crisp prose shines from
the get-go as he manages to
map a sophisticated tale of time
travel with significant tension
and memorable characters.
Mystery readers will
be hooked by the
unresolved death
and quiet intrigue of
this lakeside thriller.Production grades
Cover: B-
Design & typography: A-
Illustrations: –
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A-
Production grades
Cover: B-
Design & typography: B+
Illustrations: –
Editing: B-
Marketing copy: BThis alluring mix of
time-travel, American
history, and baseball
will rope in readers
of socio-political
thrillers.
Great for fans of
Mike Chen’s Here And
Now And Then, Bee
Ridgway’s The River of
No Return.Great for fans of
Gillian Flynn’s Dark
Places, Karen M.
McManus’s One of Us
Is Lying.PAID REVIEWS