Publisher's Synopsis
Death of the Keynote Speaker An enticing blend of history and imagination, Death of the Keynote Speaker has the feel of Stephen King's The Shining. Set on an isolated island off the coast of New Hampshire, the characters endure a terrible storm, downed telephone lines and no cell service, all of which renders their solitude in an always connected world even more unnerving. A coterie of academics, they've gathered at a ramshackle hotel on Star Island to delve once again into the mystery of their favorite writer, Abigail Brewster, who might have been caught up in murder there more than a century before. When their keynote speaker is found dead with an axe in his back, the conference morphs into a search for the killer amongst them. A literary puzzle adds to the intrigue. Emotions and attitudes suppressed for years are laid bare. Everyone is suspected, and no one is spared. The murderer is finally revealed, but the damage is done - there will be no more meetings of the "friends" who were once the Abigail Brewster Society. Death of the Keynote Speaker provides a close-up look at academic intrigue where otherwise honorable people lie, cheat and steal to get ahead. The pressure to produce papers, research and artifacts that support or give the lie to, say, a poet's place in the literary pantheon, is enormous. For one of the characters in Keynote Speaker, it leads to murder. And - like Ms. Dean's first book, Tour de Trace - the place and geographic descriptions are superb, undoubtedly enhanced by her personal experiences on an island where solitude can still be found.
