Review: A Distance To Death by Holly Menino

A Mysterious Review of A Distance To Death by Holly Menino. A Tink Elledge Mystery.

Review summary: The murder mystery here is a little thin, though the characters are generally interesting and the mountain setting nearly ideal. However, without a compelling crime plot to draw readers in and keep them engaged, this is an easy book to put down and possibly forget to pick back up again. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

A Distance To Death
Holly Menino
A Tink Elledge Mystery
Minotaur Books (August 2014)

Publisher synopsis: Tink Elledge is a woman who doesn't take well to sitting still — not when it comes to husbands, not when it comes to looking after her stepson Stephen, and certainly not when it comes to horses. So when she gets the chance to ride in a competition again — even on a trail as grueling as the steep twists and turns of the legendary Tevis endurance trail ride — she jumps at it. In the Sierra mountain wilderness, she and her friend Isabel — an avid horsewoman and Darwin devotee — will race across one hundred miles of spectacular gorges and cross heart-stopping fords.

Meanwhile, Stephen and Tink's husband, Charlie, are nearby working on a new partnership with the brilliant but secretive scientist James Grant-Worthington. When Grant-Worthington suddenly dies of not-so-natural causes, the entire deal is thrown into question. Eager to help, Tink begins searching for clues, starting with Josh Untemeyer, the PR manager for the institute Grant-Worthington founded to promote the theory of intelligent design, who has also been pursuing Isabel. As Tink and Isabel join the pack of elite riders and their horses scramble up the vertiginous, narrow trail, Josh goes missing. Tink must sort through the secrets and lies in a race against time to cross the finish line and save the two people she cares for.