Trouble Island

November 1, 2024

Short ("Stain-Busting Mystery" series), who also writes as Jess Montgomery, pens a closed-circle mystery set during the 1930s on a remote island in Lake Erie, which serves as both a gangster hideaway and home to Rosita, wife to gangster Eddie, and her maid, Aurelia. As Eddie and his associates descend on the island, Aurelia finds Rosita dead, with an ice storm cutting them off from the mainland. Prepub Alert.

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November 1, 2024
Set in the 1930s, this spooky, roller-coaster ride sees Susan Walker leaving behind her hillbilly roots in southeastern Ohio for Chicago, though she only gets as far as Toledo before running out of money. She finds work in a nightclub, where she meets gangster Eddie McGee, his glamorous wife, Rosita, and Pony, a handsome hoodlum. Susan marries Pony, and one fatal night, after he beats her once too often, she kills him. The McGees rescue Susan, spiriting her away to Trouble Island, their family hideaway. With her name changed to Aurelia to protect her identity, she finds herself a virtual prisoner of the McGees. Then Eddie brings rival Marco to the island, which Marco wants to buy. But Rosita--who's become a recluse there after her son's death--won't agree to sell. This sets off a series of terrifying, violent events that place the lives of everyone on the island in terrible danger. With stunning twist after stunning twist, the conclusion is shocking. A must-read for fans of psychological thrillers.

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September 16, 2024
A woman stumbles across a murder victim while escaping from a remote island in this deliciously twisty standalone from Short (the Kinship series, as Jess Montgomery). In 1931, Aurelia Escalante arrives on Lake Erie’s Trouble Island to work as a maid for Rosita McGee, owner of the island’s only mansion. Gradually, readers learn that “Aurelia” is an alias, that she’s running from a crime she committed years earlier, and that her relationship with Rosita has slid from comfortable to complicated. Aurelia is alarmed when crooked ex-cop Cormac Herlihy, who once vowed to kill her, arrives at the mansion as a guest of Rosita’s husband, Eddie. She tries to flee to the mainland with a box of jewels she recently discovered at the bottom of the lake, but shortly after she arrives at the shore, she discovers Rosita’s bloated corpse. Then an ice storm cuts her off from the mainland. She informs Eddie of Rosita’s death, and a search begins for her killer, with suspects including Herlihy and Eddie’s other guests—a doctor, a famous actor, and a gangster. Aurelia’s urgent first-person narration bestows the narrative with plenty of tension, which Short supplements with well-drawn supporting characters and several devilish reversals. Readers will have little trouble finishing this in a single sitting.

December 1, 2024
A young woman with a difficult past stands up to the Mafia, her best friend, and a host of bad memories when trouble comes to Trouble Island. It's 1931. For reasons we don't know, Aurelia Escalante has been exiled to a remote island surrounded by the icy waters of Lake Erie, an island owned by the McGee crime family. She and Rosita, the estranged wife of crime boss Eddie McGee, used to be friends, but a string of murder and tragedy has put strain on their relationship--as well as the fact that Aurelia is treated like domestic help on the island. When Eddie and a small entourage arrive one frigid November day, intending to convince Rosita to sell the island to a rival family, Aurelia has just put in motion a plan to escape, aided by the lockbox full of gold and jewels she'd found washed up on the shore. But there will be no easy opportunity to slip away. Instead, Aurelia finds herself embroiled in what is essentially a game of Clue: As people on the island start dying, she must uncover past truths and false identities while doing her best to preserve her own secrets. The plot is full of more twists and turns than a Chutes and Ladders board, and Short throws in some flashbacks for good measure. Though we don't fully understand what drives Aurelia, first to align herself with the McGees and then to have the strength and chutzpah to break that bond, until the very end of the novel, her cunning sense of self-preservation--plus a little help from a handsome bodyguard and a kindly domestic couple--keeps her alive, and keeps the pages turning. The isolated setting is well-rendered, and while not all the murders are necessarily weighty, nor all the solutions logical, the book has enough style and flash to make it worth reading. A spunky heroine plus a beautiful, unusual setting make this a must-read.

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