Tainted Town Review
By Michael Corrigan, The Bridgton News, Bridgton, Maine

Book’s stories set in Maine

Evora Jordan works and writes in Connecticut now, where she is involved with Nutmeg State writers’ organizations. She may be wrapped up in all things Connecticut, but her heart remains in Maine.

The former SAD 61 counselor has concocted a group of stories set in Maine - she even has a tale about a pet from Harvest Hills, Annie Love.

Her Twenty-One Days With a Vulture, the vacation of a lifetime turned into a nightmare by an imbalanced travel partner got some buzz a few years back as a possible movie.

Her Hannah Gray Mystery series now has a third member, Tainted Town. Evora Jordan’s “Mill River” is a fictional town located right about where Stephen King’s Castle Rock sits, and that is appropriate in this one, as Tainted Town features a real live haunted house, plus some otherworldly (perhaps) happenings at the nearby Ocsac town office, over the New Hampshire line.

The protagonist, Hannah Gray, retired from about every job under the sun, writes in the first person. “Now that I’m retired, I’m working at changing the definition of retirement.” What the lady does is investigate strange cases, solve them, and write about them, which is, supposedly, how the books come about. She works with a retired Maine State Trooper, and the books are quite cleverly put together. In this story, there is a murder - or are there two? - and the pursuers get caught up in some whopping mysteries. During the process of the story, the detective amusingly and self-referentially opens up The Hannah Gray Cookbook to page 25; buy that book on Amazon.com yourself to see what the detective had to eat that night!

While there are some good lines and well-concocted plot turns, the book also contains a few inconsistencies of voice, and there are some typos. The New Englanders quoted show the author’s good ear for accent and vocabulary, though the conversations occasionally artificially carry more information than “real” ones might. The writing is direct and the small-format pages are easy to get through. Tainted Town, 316 pp., $11.95. EvoraBooks; try Amazon.com., BordersBooks, www.BooksByEvora.com or evorabooks@snet.net.