Paula Messina Reviews: Agony Hill by Sarah Stewart Taylor

  

Please welcome back author Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

  

Agony Hill

 

by Paula Messina

 

 

In fiction, character, plot, and setting are equal, but character is more equal. At least that’s true for this reader. If I don’t like the characters or find them intriguing, I’m reluctant to spend time with them. Think about it. We don’t hang around with individuals who are boring or dislikable or nasty. Why should fictional characters be any different?

Agony Hill by Sarah Stewart Taylor is the first novel in her third mystery series. I had no trouble diving in because the characters are both likable and relatable. The main character, Franklin Warren, isn’t a genius à la Sherlock Holmes or Nero Wolfe. He isn’t a barrel of laughs like Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder, nor is he an eccentric like Hercule Poirot. He’s a normal guy, but a normal guy haunted by his past. He’s also empathetic and compassionate.

Plot might come in second to character, but it definitely matters. After all, you can’t have a novel without a story. Agony Hill is set during the 1960s, and it opens with Sylvie Weber and her sons swimming in a pond. A stranger appears out of nowhere, waves a knife at Sylvie, and demands she speak to him.

The action shifts to Warren, who has moved from Boston to Bethany, Vermont, to join the state police. He hasn’t had time to unpack when he’s ordered to report to the site of a fire on Agony Hill where Hugh Weber has died. Everyone is convinced he committed suicide, everyone except for Warren.

It was impossible for anyone to enter or exit the barn, but Warren think Weber was murdered. After all, this is a mystery, and the story would end before it barely began if foul play wasn’t suspected. Warren sets out to prove his theory that foul play is afoot.

While investigating, Warren spots someone in the woods. Is he the murderer? Warren chases him but is outrun. The detective isn’t the only one concerned about a suspicious character. Someone had trespassed on Alice Bellows’ property. Warren’s next-door neighbor, Bellows senses that someone is spying on her and is determined to find out who is it. She sets out on her own investigation.

Agony Hill is in the whodunit mode, but it has elements of several mystery sub-genres. The small town where everyone knows each other is definitely a cozy element. Taylor never wanders into John Dickson Carr territory, but the murder takes place in a locked barn with no possible entry or exit. Franklin Warren is a detective, but Agony is not a police procedural. This novel is character driven.

A recurring cast of characters is one reason for readers to wait anxiously for the next book and the book after that. It’s a technique used by the best mystery writers. Sherlock Holmes has his Lestrade, the Baker Street Irregulars, and the infinitely patient Mrs. Hudson. Nero Wolfe has the crew living in his brownstone and catering to his every whim, the cigar-abuser Inspector Cramer, and Archie Goodwin’s favorite dancing partner, Lily Rowan.

I suspect the characters we meet in Agony Hill will appear in subsequent books. Alice Bellows, is something of an amateur sleuth, another cozy element. Pinky Goodrich, a new officer who blushes early and often, is Warren’s sidekick. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Sylvie Weber and her children reappear. It’s obvious from the get-go Warren is drawn to her.

I realized the importance of setting when I gave a writer and Robert Parker fan a tour of Boston. The top item on her list of things to see, the only spot she had to see, was Spenser’s office on the corner of Boylston and Berkeley Streets. The next day, she was off to Cambridge to discover Susan Silverman’s house.

Characters aren’t the only ones who navigate a novel’s setting. Readers do as well. The more vivid the setting, the more readers are immersed in its milieu. I’m not immune either. When I walk down Boylston Street, I often look up at the building on the corner of Boylston and Berkeley and think, “That’s Spenser’s office,” and I look at the empty shop across the street and remember it used to be a Dorothy Muriel’s Bakery.

The imaginary Bethany, Vermont, is as much a character as the rest of the crew. It’s a place where everyone knows his neighbors. The characters are part of a community that cares about the people who live there, and I’m convinced, they’re waiting to welcome readers in the next Franklin Warren mystery. I can imagine Taylor fans searching for the “real” Bethany.

I have one quibble. Boston’s North End is referred to as Little Italy. No Massachusetts native ever refers to the land on Shawmut Peninsula as Little Italy. Warren would know better.

That little hiccup aside, Agony Hill is an engaging read. And yes, there is another Franklin Warren mystery, Hunter’s Heart Ridge. I look forward to reading it.

 

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Paula Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina is writing an historical mystery set in Boston’s North End. Donatello Laguardia, the WIP’s main character, solves crimes in Devil’s Snare and Snakeberry. Her contemporary fiction appears in Black Cat Weekly, The Ekphrastic Review, THEMA, and Wolfsbane. And yes, her Donatello Laguardia stories have recurring characters.