Till the Cows Come Home

by Judy Clemens

Overview

"She's smart. She's tough. She's sexy. She's a dairy farmer?"—Booklist

Stella Crown works hard and loves her life. She runs her own Pennsylvania dairy farm with the trusted help of longtime farmhand Howie who stuck with her after her parents died. She rides her Harley on the weekends, and has just enough friends to suit her fiercely independent nature.

But on her 29th birthday, things start to change. A local child dies from a strange and threatening illness, a string of mysterious disasters place Stella and her farm in peril, and her childhood friend Abe shows up with a new woman on his arm. It seems like bad luck run amok, but when her livestock begins turning up dead, Stella knows that something, or someone, is out to get her.

Agatha and Anthony Award Nominee for Best First Novel

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615950287
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Series:	Stella Crown Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	301
File size:	638 KB

About the Author

Judy Clemens spends her days in rural Ohio, where she writes, spends time with her family, and eats too much chocolate. She is the author of the Grim Reaper and Stella Crown mysteries, and is a past president of Sisters in Crime.

What People are Saying About This

Charles Todd

An absolute page turner from an exciting new talent-and a terrific new protagonist.

Editorial Reviews

On Crown's 29th birthday, which she'd prefer to forget but which a giant clan of family friends insists on marking, it becomes obvious that something worse than ordinary hard times or bad luck is going on. A mysterious, flulike disease has struck the area, especially its children, and someone is devoting a lot of time to subtly attacking Crown's farm and its inhabitants. Clemens' plotting is solid and unexpected, and all her characters-the desperate farmers, their frustrated families, even the local biker fraternity-come quickly to life. Especially Crown, who confesses that she keeps her hair short "to show off the cow skull tattooed at the base of my neck" but who so far has resisted suggestions to have "Got milk?" engraved somewhere on her body.

Chicago Tribune

Set in Pennsylvania dairy farm country, newcomer Clemens's absorbing mystery thriller explores the impact of runaway development and loss of agricultural land on farmers such as her engaging heroine, motorcycle-riding, 29-year-old Stella Crown. The story opens with the aftermath of a calving as graphic as any similar scene in James Herriott's All Creatures Great and Small: "I tried to wipe the blood off my face, but my gloves were too messy... I looked down at my boots and they were hidden beneath birth muck and manure." This sets the tone for a series of menacing incidents-a leaking hole in a manure pit, a dead cow, a missing dog, a flooded barn-that spell trouble for Stella and others in her rural community. Worst of all is a mysterious illness afflicting children. The author excels at drawing true-to-life characters, including Howie, Stella's family farmhand of 20 years; Zach, her 14-year-old helper; Carla, the veterinarian who sews up the cow that delivers the calf; and her fellow bikers. An attractive barn painter and an old beau provide some romantic conflict, while a suave developer makes a splendid villain. (Apr. 26) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Stella Crown runs the family dairy farm with alone farmhand Howie to help her. Together they stave off rapacious developers who have been buying up land near Philadelphia-but at the expense of Stella's social life. Just about the time a particularly obnoxious developer is again rejected, things begin to go wrong: someone sabotages the manure lagoon, a cow is purposely killed, the electricity is tampered with, and so forth. In addition, two neighboring children have died from a mysterious, flulike disease. Stella, full of foreboding, retaliates. Talented first-timer Clemens's solid, commendable prose, in-depth characterization, and sympathetic subject matter make this a good choice for regional and larger mystery collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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