Book Review: The Mystery at Mount Forest Island
The Mystery at Mount Forest Island. Pat Camalliere. Amika Press, March 27, 2020, Trade Paperback and E-book, 352 pages.
Reviewed by Sue Merrell.
I love returning to an author I’ve read before, catching up with characters I’ve met, and embarking on a new adventure. For these reasons, I really enjoyed Pat Camalliere’s latest novel, The Mystery at Mount Forest Island.
Camalliere’s work spans several genres: historical fiction, paranormal suspense, and a healthy dose of women's lit. This is the third book in the Cora Tozzi Mystery Series, set in the author’s stomping grounds around Lemont, Illinois. Each book weaves in a rich history of the area.
The prologue grabs the reader’s attention with a casual scene between infamous gangster Al Capone and his brother Ralph, who is rumored to have run a bottling operation in Lemont during Prohibition.
The story begins at the Palos Woods Golf Club from the Roaring Twenties to the 1950s when the caretaker’s cottage for the abandoned golf club has become a family farmhouse. In modern times, the farmhouse and clubhouse are long gone, except for a few paranormal glimpses.
Valerie Pawlik, who was blinded in an automobile accident in the first Cora Tozzi book, The Mystery at Sag Bridge, returns to seek Cora’s help in tracking down her mother, Jemma, who abandoned the family when Valerie was a child. Jemma’s story of growing up in that farmhouse on the former golf course becomes a first-person book-within-a-book featuring creepy characters, mysterious activity at night, and a vague connection to the Chicago mob.
The unresolved tension between Valerie and Cora adds to the characters' believability and their ability to grow and change. Much less believable is Cora’s realization that she knew Valerie’s mother back when Cora was a high school student in Oak Lawn and Valerie was just a toddler. If you can get past the feeling of too much coincidence, memories of that friendship help flesh out some of Jemma’s adult life after leaving the farmhouse in Palos Woods.
All the loose ends of gangsters, horse racing, and the shadow life at the farmhouse, are tied together by Cora’s friend Billy Nokoy, who is struggling to understand his paranormal skills. Frannie, Cora’s pal and research assistant, and Cisco, her reluctantly supportive husband, help uncover additional pieces of the mystery. I like the way these characters are full of flaws and self-doubt, but manage to work things out.
Most of the crime and mystery in the book, including the murder of Jemma’s brother, is told at arm’s length. There’s little of that page-turner, imminent danger feeling. The big questions are related to interpersonal relationships, such as why Jemma left her kids.
But the book delivers an action-packed finale with a mysterious prowler, a ghost, and a hostage situation. It’s all crowned with a forest fire and one of the characters becoming the surprising rescuer.
The story’s connections to Al Capone and the Chicago mob will attract many non-Chicago readers. But if you are familiar with Lemont, Oak Lawn, and Chicago Heights, this book feels like old home week, even if you still have trouble pronouncing Potawatomi.