Author Patricia Skalka.
A pair of moody mysteries by established Wisconsin authors will provide readers with a double dose of death this summer.
Patricia Skalka’s Death by the Bay, and The Dead of Achill Island by UW-Madison English professors emeriti Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden, are set on opposite sides of the world — Door County’s peninsula and Ireland’s largest island, respectively. They’re also rife with memorable scenes in such unexpected places as the rubble of an asylum and the sauna of a kinky swingers’ club.
Both will be out from the University of Wisconsin Press this month.
Death by the Bay is the fifth title in the “Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery” series, featuring a former Chicago cop who, after witnessing the death of his wife and daughter, relocated to Door County to rebuild his life and eventually wound up as sheriff. The Dead of Achill Island is the fourth title in the “Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler Mystery” series featuring an art historian and her sidekick husband.
Both stories feature several despicable characters, which makes trying to figure out whodunit all the more fun. Equally compelling is the fact that each author based their plots on haunting historical incidents that reveal real-world tragedies amid contemporary murder mysteries.
In Death by the Bay, after the 93-year-old director of Green Bay’s prestigious Institute for Progressive Medicine dies suddenly during a medical conference at Door County’s Green Arbor Lodge, Cubiak’s investigation reveals the doctor was striving to uncover a link between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. But the no-nonsense sheriff senses something sinister about the doctor’s efforts, and he’s not convinced natural causes killed the man.
Death by the Bay wouldn’t be a traditional Skalka mystery, though, if it didn’t include an unexpected twist or two. As in last year’s Death Rides the Ferry, Cubiak actually must solve two mysteries. That’s where the Northern Hospital for the Insane, now known as the Winnebago Mental Health Institute near Oshkosh, comes into the story. In Skalka’s fictionalization, the facility was devastated by fire years prior but left behind a major clue that fans the flames for a whirlwind conclusion and a touching postscript.
In the book’s acknowledgements, Skalka writes that she took inspiration from her maternal grandparents — immigrant farmers in central Wisconsin who witnessed the tragedy that befalls families when children are used as medical research subjects.
Authors Michael Hinden and Betsy Draine.
Draine and Hinden have written a more straightforward but no less captivating mystery. While vacationing with her parents, sister and husband on Ireland’s Achill (rhymes with “cackle”) Island after a family reunion, Nora — an alternately charming and vexing narrator — takes an early-morning walk and stumbles upon the dead body of her Uncle Bert, a commercial developer with big but controversial plans for the island.
Several pieces of evidence point to Nora’s mother as the key suspect in the murder. But then Uncle Bert’s business partner is found dead in almost the exact same location, which throws suspicion on four other characters.
Into this murderous mix, the authors weave morbid (and relevant) details of the Achill prophecy, which references a 17th-century prophet who foretold that “carriages on iron wheels” would carry corpses on their first and final journeys to the island. The prophecy was fulfilled when a train carrying home the bodies of 30 migrants, who drowned on their way to jobs in Scotland, traveled to Achill Island in 1894, and then when the burned bodies of 10 boys — more migrant laborers from the island, also working in Scotland — were brought home on the last train in 1937, shortly before the local rail line shut down.
Both books have minor shortcomings. Some of the coincidences are a little too convenient in Death by the Bay. Unlike in previous Cubiak books, the sheriff doesn’t spend as much quality time with his wife, Cate, and former Door County coroner Evelyn Bathard, as Skalka keeps his focus on the case. Meanwhile, clumsy dialogue occasionally mars The Dead of Achill Island, and Toby serves as a passive prop for Nora’s detective-playing instincts, as he assumes a less entertaining role than he did in 2016’s Death on a Starry Night.
Yet these atmospheric novels set in striking locales — and each dispensing equal doses of sophisticated suspense and authentic local color — further establish the UW Press not only as a trusted source for fine scholarly and regional books but also as a publisher of sharp and smart mystery fiction.
Authors of both books will be appearing at Mystery to Me this month. Skalka’s book launch is scheduled for May 14 at 7 p.m., while Draine and Hinden will launch theirs May 24 at 7 p.m.
