Winter Break

by Merry Jones

Overview

Harper Jennings has survived the Iraq war, her husband Hank's brain injury, a drug conspiracy, and a gang of murderous artifact smugglers. So she should be able to survive a visit from her mother while Hank's away on his first business trip since the accident. Right? When self-obsessed, controlling Vivian arrives with a new man in tow, however, Harper can't believe she let Hank talk her into this.

Soon, though, Harper--four months pregnant and on doctor's orders to rest--has more on her mind than her mother's constant interference. When she glimpses a nude young man being dragged into the woods near her house, everyone--police included--concludes it was either kids playing around or Harper's hormones talking.

But Harper can't let it go, and when she starts to suspect her mother's boyfriend might be hiding something, soon even her own home no longer seems as place of safetry...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798224301621
Publisher:	Bloch Books
Publication date:	05/29/2024
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Merry Jones is the multiple award-winning author of over twenty suspense, non-fiction and humor books whose work has been translated into seven languages. She lives in Philadelphia, PA, where she writes and sculls on the Schuylkill River.

Editorial Reviews

In Jones’s uneven third Harper Jennings mystery (after 2012’s Behind the Walls), four-months pregnant Harper, an Iraq war veteran and now a Cornell graduate student, looks out her window one winter night and spots a naked man running out of the snowy woods into the light of her driveway’s motion sensors. Another figure follows, tackles the first, then carries him back into the woods. When Harper reports what she saw to the police, her flighty, irritating mother, who’s staying with her while husband Hank is away, suggests Harper’s PTSD or hormones caused her to hallucinate. The only people taking her seriously are students Evan Lourd and Sty, who live at the fraternity next door. As Evan and Sty ingratiate themselves with her household, Baby Mozart and Harper’s thesis on pre-Columbian symbolism become secondary to a search for the truth—and her survival. A leisurely setup abruptly jolts into unlikely revelations and violent confrontations. Agent: Rebecca Strauss, McIntosh & Otis. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

In this third outing (after Behind the Walls), Harper Jennings finds that a visit from her mother and the woman's new boyfriend may be too much. Is it just pregnancy hormones making Harper think her mother's boyfriend is hiding something or is she on to something? And what about that body in the woods?

Library Journal

Pregnant Iraq War vet Harper Jennings (Behind the Walls, 2012, etc.) faces her most perilous adventure: an extended Christmas visit from her mother. Hank Jennings, more or less recovered from his fall from the family roof (Summer Session, 2011), is off on a geological survey in South Texas. Concerned about his wife back in Ithaca, he's arranged for her mother, Vivian, and her current boyfriend, Lou, to stay with her. It's not a happy choice. Vivian's alcoholism, narcissism and persistent attraction to losers have kept her at a distance from Harper, who bickers with her over everything, and Lou, who actually seems to be more on the ball than most of his predecessors, turns out to be hiding a dangerous secret. The biggest problem this Christmas, however, is the next-door neighbors. The fraternity house, which is supposed to be vacant for the holidays, is actually tenanted by Evan Lourd and his buddy Sty, who've stayed over without permission so that they can pick up other young men and murder them, taking their time over each victim in order to study his reactions and perfect their technique. As in the case of Leopold and Loeb, things don't go as smoothly for Evan and Sty as they expect, and the complications increasingly involve Harper as witness, as potential victim and as avenger. Jones works conscientiously to cross-pollinate the distant but lethal threats posed by Lou's secret with the clear and present danger represented by the boys next door If you can swallow the coincidences behind the setup and the physically indomitable heroine, this nonstop tale pays off in spades.

Kirkus Reviews