“Three Can Keep A Secret” – 24th Joe Gunther mystery – is in stores. Joe and his team need to solve a complex case involving two corpses, one escaped mental patient, and a long-held secret that binds them together – all set during Hurricane Irene’s devastating tear through Vermont in 2011.
The Plot
Set during the 2011 real-life Tropical Storm Irene that ravaged much of Vermont, Joe Gunther and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation pitch in to help the state’s overextended authorities. What Gunther and his agents end up with in Three Can Keep A Secret is an odd, seemingly unrelated batch of cases: a patient who calls herself The Governor has walked away from a state mental facility when the flooded facility is evacuated; and a seventeen-year-old grave site is exposed, revealing a coffin that had been filled with rocks instead of the expected remains. Amidst the turmoil and the disaster relief, it’s up to Joe Gunther and his team to learn what really happened with the two corpses-one on hand and one missing-and what secret “The Governor” might have still locked in her brain.
An excerpt from Three Can Keep A Secret
Archer Mayor’s New York Times bestselling Joe Gunther series returns with a complex case involving two corpses, one escaped mental patient, and a long-held secret that binds them together
“Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” —Ben Franklin
Joe Gunther and his team—the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI)—are usually called in on major cases by local Vermont enforcement whenever they need expertise and back-up. But after the state is devastated by Hurricane Irene, the police from one end of the state are taxed to their limits, leaving Joe Gunther involved in an odd, seemingly unrelated series of cases. In the wake of the hurricane, a seventeen year old gravesite is exposed, revealing a coffin that had been filled with rocks instead of the expected remains.
At the same time, an old, retired state politician turns up dead at his high-end nursing home, in circumstances that leave investigators unsure that he wasn’t murdered. And a patient who calls herself The Governor has walked away from a state mental facility during the post-hurricane flood. It turns out that she was indeed once “Governor for a Day,” over forty years ago, but that she might have also been falsely committed and drugged to keep her from revealing something that she saw all those years ago. Amidst the turmoil and the disaster relief, it’s up to Joe Gunther and his team to learn what really happened with the two corpses—one missing—and what secret “The Governor” might have still locked in her brain that links them all.