The Full Scoop

April 27, 2020
In Orr’s amiable fourth mystery featuring Tuttle Corner, Va., investigative reporter Riley Ellison (after 2019’s The Ugly Truth), Riley is convinced that colleague Hal Flick’s recent vehicular death was no accident and that it’s somehow connected to the suspicious death of her grandfather, Albert Ellison, seven years earlier. Riley examines Hal’s research into five members of the Miller family who died in a plane crash in 1959. Disgraced former sheriff Joe Tackett, recently imprisoned after pleading guilty to corruption charges, then claims to have evidence that Albert was, indeed, murdered. He’s willing to trade the information for a transfer or reduced sentence, but Riley’s ex-boyfriend, federal agent Jay Burman, seeks to block the county prosecutor from cutting a deal with Tackett. Defying Burman, Riley seeks to bring Tackett’s evidence to light as she pursues the startling truth about the Miller family. A subplot involving an online astrology service doesn’t mar the pace or weaken the suspense. Readers will hope to see a lot more of the intrepid Riley. Agents: Emma Sweeney and Margaret Sutherland Brown, Emma Sweeney Agency.