December's Thorn

November 5, 2012
Five days before Christmas, Fever Devilin receives an unexpected nighttime visitor in DePoy's rich, allusive seventh mystery featuring the Georgia folklorist (after 2011's A Corpse's Nightmare): an unknown, sorrowful-looking woman, who introduces herself as his wife, Issie. Fever calls his real fiancée, Lucinda Foxe, seeking help in dealing with the woman who he believes is mad. Lucinda and Sheriff Skidmore Needle arrive in short order, but not before Issie has fled. Both are concerned that the woman may not be real, but an aftereffect of Fever's recent coma. Psychiatrist Ceridwen Nelson is on hand the next morning to help the mysterious woman if she is real or Fever if she is not. The ancient Cornish tale of Tristan and Isolde intertwines with the ongoing discoveries, many of them uncomfortable, as Fever and Ceri seek to solve the riddle that is Issie. Fans of fiction with a hint of the supernatural will be pleased. Agent: Janet Reid, FinePrint Literary Management.

Starred review from December 1, 2012
When a wife you don't remember you had shows up on your doorstep, should you introduce her to your fiancee? The three-month coma from which folklorist Fever Devlin has just emerged (A Corpse's Nightmare, 2011, etc.) may have addled his brain. Did some wraithlike woman clad in black really appear at his cabin one night claiming to be his wife and the mother of his son, or is he hallucinating? When Fever's old friend Skidmore, the sheriff of Blue Mountain, Ga., can't find a trace of the phantom bride, Fever's fiancee, Lucinda, a nurse, asks psychiatrist Ceri Nelson for an opinion. Thus begins a chase through Jungian archetypes, the basis for the Tristan and Isolde legend, and a reconsideration of the sprigs on the Devlin family tree--along with rifle blasts, confrontations with black bears and a whiff of sexual interest between the quirky doctor and her even quirkier patient. Is it possible Fever has repressed more than an acquaintance with the now-you-see-her-now-you-don't bride? To Fever's chagrin, the puckish Dr. Nelson keeps on bringing up mother issues. To untangle them, Fever must revisit a trip to Wales he took as a young college instructor and a student's obsession that landed Fever smack in the middle of a scenario out of Wagnerian opera. Is he echoing Tristan? Is the demon bride replaying Wagner's Isolde? Who then would be King Mark? Is there a conjunction between myth and reality? Cue the music; the tragedy is about to unfold. Nobody is better at misdirection than DePoy. Nobody is better at making Carl Jung entertaining than DePoy. And if you ever need a psychiatrist, Ceri Nelson is probably the most endearing practitioner in all of mystery fiction.

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December 1, 2012
The seventh book in the Fever Devilin series has an unusual beginning; a woman, claiming to be Fever's wife, shows up on his doorstep proclaiming that they also have a son; then she disappears into the night. Fever has no idea who she is, though he is pretty sure he has never been married, and, worst of all, no one he tells about the encounter believes it even happened. Devilin is a retired professor of folklore living in an old family cabin in Georgia's Appalachian Mountains. He was shot and killed, revived, and in a coma for three months, which caused some memory problems, among other issues, compelling his fianc', a nurse, to ask a psychiatrist friend to help out. When bullets take out Devilin's kitchen window, the local sheriff, Devilin's childhood friend, gets on board to try to find the woman and child. Lots of interesting folklore is woven throughout, and the somehow not-quite-idyllic setting becomes another of the finely drawn characters in this mystical, twisty tale. Fans of southern-gothic mystery will love this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)