by Mike Corrigan, Staff Writer
The Bridgton News, Bridgton, Maine

April, 24, 2003

Tainted Sand is based on the l989 missing persons case involving a Reny's store and a couple from Massachusetts. In Evora Jordan's imagination, the case gets an infusion of a few new key facts and plot details - one of them a new house built by contractors from hell - and ends with a satisfying, if somewhat grisly, conclusion. The book also ends with a greater sense of justice being served than did the true-life case, which hasn't really ended at all. In fact, it remains unsolved 14 years later.

The "Hannah Gray Mystery" - Hannah is Evora's alter ego - is another self-published work by the former SAD 61 counselor, who, like her protagonist, is now "a retired everything." But Evora, who moved to Connecticut a few years ago, is not retired as an author, or publisher, or book marketer. She's keeping busy, she says, and is having "the time of (her) life." Evora plans to return to the Lake Region for a couple of months this summer, so there will be book signings and meetings with old friends.

The book has an attractive cover design, is in an easily readable, easy-to-handle format, and sells for $7.95, a low cost for any paperback these days.

Tainted Sand is set entirely in Maine, and part of it in western Maine, to boot. The place names are familiar, as are many of the characters and a lot of the scenery. Hannah is a widow, a retired counselor/practicing investigator, possessed of a widower State Police love, a supportive and energetic family, and a dogged determination not to be taken advantage of. All of these are factors in solving the missing person case, which is presented to Hannah in a direct manner, since the unfortunate woman and her husband attend a party at Hannah's ill-fated almost-done construction project a few days before the lady's disappearance.

Tainted Sand offers a sense of authenticity, through most of it. Much of the dialogue is good (although the book could have done without a few monologues from contractors who speak like carpentry manuals.) The plotting is excellent, the book whizzes along, and the language generally gets the job done. At times the writing is excellent. I especially liked the prologue and the first few chapters. The book begins this way:

It didn't look like a house of horror. It was just a typical New England shingled cape, with two single dormers and an open breezeway that led to a one-car garage. The house was only a mile from the center of Lexington, Massachusetts in a neighborhood where everybody knew each other, or thought they did anyway...

I like that telling, understated last clause. The book, unlike the protagonist's new house that co-stars, is built on a solid foundation of strong plot and emotional truth. It's a good yarn with a believable and dramatic story arc.

Evora Jordan wrote the previously-released Twenty-One Days With a Vulture, a novelized version of a trip to France with a coworker gentleman who turns into an almost pathological abuser, as the story turns into a nightmare of evasion and escape. 

Evora's other new book is the children's story, Annie Love, told from the first person (or first-dog) point of view, describing a mutt rained upon by kicks, blows and negative messages, who goes through Harvest Hills Animals Shelter and emerges into the sunshine of positive messages and lots of feeling love from a new master. That book is designed and photographed by Kurt and Diana Manner. The message is explicit. The kids' book can be read in five minutes, and would make good reading for any child (or maybe any adult) emotionally or physically abused or neglected. Just as Evora Jordan is getting good at being "a retired everything," Annie Love tells us that we are all good dogs, if we'll only stand up, wag our scruffy little tails, and believe in ourselves.

One thing I'm sure of, Hannah Gray isn't taking any bull from anybody.