The Summer of Love and Death

Detective Susan Ford has just met her new partner, Jack Tomelli, when they are thrown into their first case. The director of a summer stock theater has been garishly murdered on the set. The victim’s body is displayed in an oddly specific, ritualistic manner. When Susan tells her father, a retired detective, about the case, it brings up memories of a case he handled during the Summer of Love. The similarities are eerie. Checking out alibis, motives, and connections to the victims from both the new and the previous murders creates a tangle of possibilities. Ford and Tomelli unravel intergenerational trauma and the thirst for revenge, as well as new and unrelated crimes—but not before they put their own lives on the line. McCreary’s second installment in the “Ford Family Mystery” series (following The Murder of Madison Garcia) tracks a killer across the decades. Rachel Fulginiti and Stephen Bowlby narrate with skill and clarity, ably taking listeners through the complexities of multiple generations, blended families, domestic abuse, and serial killings. Ford’s own complicated family relations add to the mix.