Scared to Death

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In the third mystery involving Chloe Yan, it is now March in East
Hastings, Ontario, and another murder has occurred. The victim, gorgeous
Tessa Nixon, was a student at the local high school, and, only hours
before her death, a nervous Tessa had knocked on Chloe’s door seeking
Chloe’s stepfather, Louis Levesque, the local police chief.

Chloe promises Levesque that she will not become involved in the case,
but her promise is especially hard to keep since a prime suspect is
Chloe’s fellow student and good friend, Ross Jenkins. Tessa was
Ross’s neighbor and someone he’d had a serious crush on since
childhood. Tessa had apparently broken up with her boyfriend, Jake
Bailey, and had been seeing Ross. However, Chloe had observed Tessa and
Jake kissing, and she later spied Tessa and Ross arguing. From Ross’s
perspective, a jealous Jake had to be Tessa’s murderer for Jake had a
known violent temper, a previous juvenile record, and unsavory friends.
Jake is equally convinced that a spurned Ross also had sufficient motive
to kill Tessa. While Chloe is emotionally supportive of Ross, she cannot
rule him out as a suspect for Ross, like Jake, lacks a verifiable alibi
for his whereabouts on the night of the murder.

As in all good murder mysteries, McClintock salts her plot with
sufficient false-gold suspects to keep readers uncertain of the
murderer’s identity until a climactic scene in which Chloe is almost
“scared to death.” While the mystery genre is not known for strong
characterization, McClintock continues to develop the Chloe–Levesque
relationship. Highly recommended.