A STONE’S THROW An Ellie Stone Mystery
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Fiction
A STONE’S THROW
An Ellie Stone Mystery
By James W. Ziskin
299 pp. Seventh Street Books
Reviewed by Eric Petersen
Mystery writer James W. Ziskin is back with the sixth entry (previous entries are also reviewed on this site) in his popular mystery series set in an unusual time and place – upstate New York in the early 1960s – and featuring an unusual lady sleuth. Unusual for her time, that is.
At a time when career opportunities for most young women were limited by society to housewife, teacher, or secretary, Eleonora “Ellie” Stone works as an investigative reporter for the New Holland Republic, her hometown newspaper. But then, Ellie Stone isn't like most young women.
In her mid-twenties, she’s a tough-talking, hard-drinking dame with brains, guts, and wit, all of which she uses to get her story – and solve bizarre and brutal murders while she's at it. She takes no crap from men.
Artie Short, the owner and senior editor of the New Holland Republic, hates the idea of women in the workplace and prefers that Ellie stick to fluff pieces. Her fellow reporter, George Walsh, is an arrogant, swaggering, yet incompetent ass who occasionally steals her work. Unfortunately, he’s also Artie’s son-in-law.
A Stone’s Throw opens with Ellie Stone on the scene of a fire at Tempesta Farm, a long-abandoned, derelict horse-breeding farm. After the suspicious fire that consumed a barn on the property is put out, Ellie and a sheriff’s deputy search the ruins and find two charred bodies inside.
The fire was obviously set to cover up a double murder. One of the victims is a woman who’d been strangled, the other either an adolescent boy or a short man who’d been shot between the eyes. Knowing a potentially big story when she sees one, Ellie begins her own investigation of the murders.
As always, she turns to her best friend and father figure, eccentric ice cream store proprietor Ron “Fadge” Fiorello, for help. A big bear of a man with a heart of gold, Fadge’s expertise comes in handy. The male murder victim wore a racing silk around his neck, and Fadge, a horseracing enthusiast who bets too much at the track, recognizes it as belonging to Harlequin Stables.
At Harlequin, Ellie learns that a certain jockey named Johnny Dornan has gone missing and may be the male murder victim. A track denizen tells her that Johnny was a talented jockey, but “He’s arrogant. He’s unpleasant. And a little mean. Likes to make other people feel small. Maybe because he’s such a midget.”
What’s more, Dornan was hated by the other jockeys because “Johnny’s got a reputation for jostling and crowding other horses. Grabbing other riders’ crops, saddle-cloths, and reins. Pushing off, that kind of thing. Whatever might give him an advantage. He’s sly, though. Rarely gets caught by the stewards. But the other riders know what he’s up to, and they don’t like him.”
Ellie also learns that Johnny Dornan was suspected of being crooked. While researching the dark history of Tempesta Farm and the darker underbelly of horseracing, she crosses paths with the local WASP elite and falls for handsome aristocrat Freddie Whitcomb.
The feeling is mutual, but unfortunately, Freddie’s seemingly congenial mother is actually a rabid anti-Semite and doesn’t want her son to have anything to do with a Jewish girl. But Ellie has far more to worry about than the anti-Semitism of the upper class.
She discovers that the dead jockey Johnny Dornan was really John Sprague, a Canadian who began his racing career in Maryland, where he conspired with gamblers to throw a big race for a nice payoff. Caught and banned for life from racing, he started over in New York State under an assumed name.
Could Dornan have double-crossed the wrong people to save himself? Is that why he and his girlfriend ended up dead? What about the missing French Canadian girl who was a prostitute whom Dornan had patronized?
As Ellie Stone begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together, she doesn’t realize that someone has been watching her every move – a vengeful psychopathic killer determined to eliminate everyone who’s done him wrong. And she’s next on his hit list…
A riveting Dick Francis-esque murder mystery that will keep the reader guessing up until the surprise ending, A Stone’s Throw is another fine entry in the Ellie Stone mystery series. You’ll be rooting once again for James W. Ziskin’s feisty, formidable female sleuth! Highly recommended to mystery fans!
Eric Petersen is an administrator and blogmaster for the Internet Writing Workshop, an international, online writer’s group run out of Penn State University. You can reach him by e-mail at EricPetersen1970@hotmail.com
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