Best be prepared / Gwen Florio

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Title:

Author:

Florio, Gwen, 1955- author.

ISBN:

9780727850782

9781448306886

Edition:

First world edition.

Physical Description:

250 pages ; 23 cm

Series:

Nora Best mystery ; 4

Nora Best mystery ; 4.

General Note:

Sequel to: Best practices.

Abstract:

"Nora Best is enjoying the quiet life . . . finally. She's parked up the Airstream on a quiet stretch of beach and is now a seventh-grade teacher in a small peninsula town in the Pacific Northwest. Her biggest worry is keeping up with her quick-witted bunch of students. No drama. No danger. And most importantly - no one turning up dead. Until they do, that is . . . When a local environmental activist - and dad to one of her most troublesome students - is killed, Nora once again finds herself in the thick of an investigation that threatens her new-found peace. She soon uncovers that Ward's death is most likely linked to the building of the school's emergency tsunami tower - a project financed by Ward's ex-wife's new husband . . . and one that is testing the town's loyalty. With emotions, and gossip, running high, in a community where everyone knows everyone else's secrets, Nora is in a race against time to get answers before fall storms slam their vulnerable Pacific Coast peninsula putting everyone's lives in danger!" -- Publisher's description.

Subject Term:

Teachers -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Small cities -- Fiction.

Environmentalists -- Fiction.

Real estate developers -- Fiction.

Enseignants -- Romans, nouvelles, etc.

Meurtre -- Enquêtes -- Romans, nouvelles, etc.

Petites villes -- Romans, nouvelles, etc.

Promoteurs immobiliers -- Romans, nouvelles, etc.

Environmentalists

Murder -- Investigation

Real estate developers

Small cities

Teachers

FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Amateur Sleuth.

Geographic Term:

Northwest, Pacific -- Fiction.

Pacific Northwest

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction

Fiction

Detective and mystery fiction.

Detective and mystery stories

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Adult Mystery Fiction Book Hardback	120791003093662	F FLO	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A tense small town mystery that packs a big punch starring Nora Best.

Nora Best is enjoying the quiet life . . . finally. She's parked up the Airstream on a quiet stretch of beach and is now a seventh-grade teacher in a small peninsula town in the Pacific Northwest. Her biggest worry is keeping up with her quick-witted bunch of students. No drama. No danger. And most importantly - no one turning up dead.

Until they do, that is . . .

When a local environmental activist - and dad to one of her most troublesome students - is killed, Nora once again finds herself in the thick of an investigation that threatens her new-found peace. She soon uncovers that Ward's death is most likely linked to the building of the school's emergency tsunami tower - a project financed by Ward's ex-wife's new husband . . . and one that is testing the town's loyalty.

With emotions, and gossip, running high, in a community where everyone knows everyone else's secrets, Nora is in a race against time to get answers before fall storms slam their vulnerable Pacific Coast peninsula putting everyone's lives in danger!

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Florio's enthralling fourth whodunit featuring Nora Best (after 2022's Best Practices) finds the amateur sleuth, who has lived out of an Airstream trailer for years, hoping that she's found a place to settle down in a small community on a peninsula in the Pacific Northwest. She's taken a job as a seventh-grade teacher and started a romance with Luke, a guidance counselor rotating between several schools in the area. Her insights into human nature and keen observational skills are tapped again when, during a free period, one of her students finds a corpse with a head wound near school grounds. When Nora arrives on the scene, she's joined by another student, Damien, who recognizes the body as his father's. Damien's father, Ward Austin, was an environmental activist who ran a nonprofit seeking to preserve the peninsula's wildlife, a project that led to repeated clashes with other locals, including his ex-wife's new spouse, Spencer Templeton, a developer who's been pushing for approval for a new hotel. It's up to Nora to cut through small-town gossip in pursuit of firm answers. Florio never stretches credibility with Nora's talents, making it a treat to sleuth alongside her. This series merits a long run. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Assoc. (Oct.)

Kirkus Review

A middle school teacher's end-of-term project lands her smack in the middle of murder. Nora Best is doing her darnedest to repair her life after a traumatic stint at a residential program for troubled girls. Teaching seventh grade at Peninsula Middle School in a coastal town between Seattle and Portland has its challenges, but it offers Nora a chance to get in touch with her creative side. Her frustrations include Principal Louann Everhart, who sarcastically congratulates her after the school's latest tsunami drill on shepherding almost half her class to safety. But the same drill gives Nora incentive to collaborate with colleague Sheila Connor on a joint class project sampling local citizens' reactions to a tsunami tower that local developer Spencer Templeton is building. Although the tower is a loss leader for Templeton, whose real aim is to get approval to build a luxury hotel at the sandy end of the peninsula, it's controversial enough to invite Nora's band of budding Woodwards and Bernsteins to explore a wide range of public opinion. Unfortunately, it's also controversial enough to land Nora in the middle of the investigation of the death of environmental activist Ward Austin, who opposed the project, and whose body is discovered near the shore during the drill. Florio gives a neat tutorial on how to probe a political issue from a variety of perspectives without necessarily taking sides. Although the solution to the puzzle is a little pat, watching Nora with her students is a dream. Florio continues to put a contemporary spin on the old-fashioned whodunit. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Nora Best and her Airstream trailer, Electra, have resettled again, this time on a thinly populated peninsula on Washington's Pacific coast. Among her seventh-grade students is the unruly Damien Austin, stepson of a local developer. Following a routine tsunami drill, one of her students finds a body: Ward Austin, Damien's father and leader of the local environmental group opposed to development. To engage and distract the students, Nora and a fellow teacher collaborate on a class project, a newspaper presenting research and local opinion about the tsunami tower being built as a refuge for the townspeople. A chance comment to one student inspires Nora's search for Ward's killer. With Ward's murder as a backdrop, Florio explores the impact divorce has on the children who must balance the separateness of their parents' lives and the conflict between the desire to preserve nature and a bucolic lifestyle and the need for economic development. Exposing the rifts in the small community. Florio's fourth in the Nora Best Mystery series is a satisfying cozy, with Nora's personal life woven throughout.