Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door (B&N Exclusive Edition)

by Barbara Ross

Overview

This title is available only at Barnes & Noble through 10/26/2021

Jane Darrowfield is using her retirement years to work as a professional busybody, with most of her business coming from her West Cambridge, Massachusetts, community. This time her client is right next door…

Megan, who's purchased the house next to Jane's, needs some help from her snooping neighbor. Megan's been having blackouts, hearing voices—and feeling like someone's following her. Are these symptoms of an illness—or signs that she's in danger?

Considering the extensive security system in Megan's house, it seems like she should be safe—yet she soon vanishes into thin air. Some think she's run away, but would this ambitious young lawyer on the partner track really miss a meeting with an important client? And where's Megan's cat?

The mystery is about to deepen when the cat is finally located in a hidden panic room—and as Jane and the police look into Megan's friends, family, and past, it may be time to sound the alarm…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496730756
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Edition description:	B&N Exclusive Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.80(d)

Editorial Reviews

2020-08-19
One and perhaps a quarter new assignments for the Cambridge, Massachusetts, problem-solver who debuted in the aptly titled Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody (2019).

Megan Larsen doesn’t think she’s crazy, but she sure has been acting strange. She's been waking up in the middle of the night convinced she’s seen a bright light only to find her house in darkness and losing both sleep and self-confidence in the process. All of this makes it hard for her to focus on her work as a lawyer—a particular problem now that her review for a possible partnership is coming up. Megan wants Jane, her next-door neighbor, to determine whether or not she’s sane. No sooner has Jane suggested a few common-sense steps to help answer Megan’s question and identified a possible biological cause of her troubles and three men in her life who might be gaslighting her—an old friend and colleague, an ex-boyfriend, and a disastrous online date—than Megan vanishes. Her father, high-powered attorney Edwin Larsen, is unconcerned (some father!), but Jane presses on, counting on the fact that she’s on much better terms with Detective Tony Alvarez than with Megan’s father, realtor, or security provider. She even finds time to take on a tiny second case brought to her by Ralph Pilchner, another neighbor, who claims that Gordon and Pam Marshall have alienated the affections of Ralph’s cat, Roo, by feeding her themselves.

The heroine is soothing, sturdy company, but neither the main case nor the minicase leads to much of a solution.

Kirkus Reviews