The Second Mouse

The Second Mouse takes Joe Gunther and his team off their Brattleboro home turf, forty-two miles west, to chip-on-its-shoulder, blue collar Bennington. In Wilmington, VT, Gunther encounters the lifeless body of Michelle Fisher. Her corpse, pale and seemingly at peace, offers him no clues about who she was or how she died. There are no signs of violence, no disorder. Snapshots and postcards show a woman who laughed hard and lived harder. Yet diaries reveal a rootless life marred by depression and drink. Suicide seems a reasonable conclusion, but Gunther suspects foul play. The house is for sale, after all, and Michelle was its only tenant, resisting all efforts to have her evicted. The unsavory landlord is a prime suspect, but safely equipped with an impressively air-tight alibi. To uncover the truth about the fate of this discarded, all but forgotten woman, Gunther must follow a confusing trail of half leads and mounting crimes. He draws near to a violent and careless trio of criminals, whose leader is hell bent on making the career move of a lifetime—disregarding anyone in his way.