No Stone Unturned

April 14, 2014
In Ziskin’s taut second Ellie Stone mystery (after 2013’s Styx and Stone), the reporter looks into the murder of Jordan Shaw, a college girl seen having multiple assignations at the Mohawk Motel before her body was discovered half-buried in the woods outside New Holland, N.Y. The townspeople can’t decide which shocks them more: the murder, or the fact that Jordan, their golden girl, had a decidedly un-golden reputation. Ellie, meanwhile, sees Jordan’s death as an opportunity to prove her worth as a journalist. Jordan’s posse of ex-boyfriends, lovers, and suitors descend on Ellie, stalking her, assaulting her, cutting her car brakes, and derailing her investigation. While most of the characters are mere caricatures (including students Prakash Singh and Hakim Mohammed, who serve as ham-fisted symbols of the Indo-Pakistani conflict), Ellie keeps the reader’s attention throughout, as her mask of cool competence and roguish charm slowly falls away to reveal her all-consuming ambition. Agent: William Reiss, John Hawkins & Associates.

May 15, 2014
The year is 1960. Reporter Ellie Stone (Styx & Stone, 2013) looks for her big break covering the grisly murder of a beautiful college student in upstate New York.Everyone in New Holland agreed that Judge Harrison Shaw's daughter Jordan was the best. She was homecoming queen in high school and is now a sophomore at Tufts, where she's the star of the French Department. Straight-arrow Tom Quint adored her, bad-boy Pukey Boyle lusted after her, and ungainly Glenda Whalen idolized her. So how did Jordan's naked body end up in the woods the weekend after Thanksgiving? Sent by the New Holland Republic to take pictures for a story written by George Walsh, a rival reporter, Ellie hopes to get a scoop of her own by finding Jordan's car, which turns up parked at the Mohawk Motel. She also finds out from the medical examiner that Jordan had been fitted with an intrauterine device. Suspecting that a lover may have been involved in Jordan's death, Ellie looks first at the local boys who flirted their ways into Jordan's heart and then to the men of Tufts, who may have offered her more mature enticements. At every step, Ellie finds frustration: from her rival at the Republic; from locals who don't want to believe their golden girl may have strayed from the righteous path; and most of all, from a murderer who would kill again to avoid being unmasked.You can't help rooting for tenacious Ellie, who has the grit to know when she's right and the grace to admit when she's wrong.

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Starred review from June 1, 2014

Reporter/photographer Ellie Stone finally has the story of her life. It's Thanksgiving 1960, and Jordan Shaw, a local young woman home from Tufts University, has been murdered and dumped in the woods near the small town of New Holland, NY. Jordan had broken several young men's hearts, but her current activities (a trip to India and the use of an IUD, for openers) startle even Ellie and she's not one to flinch from modern lifestyles. When Ellie heads to Boston to interview the deceased's roommate, she finds her slain also. Ellie realizes that Jordan's cryptic datebook entries can help her narrow down the suspects; she unearths a veritable minefield of professors and grad students. Her interviews on campus fire up folks and before long she is in real danger. VERDICT Ziskin's sophomore entry (after Styx & Stone) rolls along energetically, and his smart and aggressive protagonist has real personality. The author's touch for academic politics coupled with his clear observations of the early years of the 1960s is superb. Don't miss this series.

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