Death in Kingsport

Kingsport, a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario, is struggling through the fall and winter of 1941 in the aftermath of the Great Depression. For fifteen-year-old Neil, life is simple and routine, until his favorite uncle, Chester, suddenly dies, and he is engulfed by an aching loneliness. At his uncle's cremation aboard a freighter in the harbor, Neil has a strange sense of foreboding as he inadvertently hears a thumping sound inside the coffin. Could Uncle Chester be alive? And so begins a chain of events that take the reader along in Neil's quest to get to the bottom of his uncle's death. When a disembodied voice in an old stable reveals that Chester's passing is not the only mysterious death in town, Neil, along with his quirky sidekick, Graham, is catapulted to action. Meet Crescent, who captures Neil's heart and provides vital clues, the suspicious Doc Savage and his questionable experiments, and the steadfast Miss Trimble, whose knowledge of the town's inhabitants goes back years. From strange happenings in the Amazon jungle to a near-death experience to getting lost on the ice when a storm erupts, Curtis Parkinson'sDeath in Kingsportis a fast-paced murder mystery in a town where nothing is as it seems.

Curtis Parkinson grew up in Kingston, Ontario. He graduated from Queen’s University and worked as a chemical engineer for many years. Then he moved to the Caribbean to live on a sailboat and write. He has since published three picture books and several short stories. Storm-Blast, his first novel, was set in the Caribbean Sea that he has learned both to love and respect. Both Storm-Blast and his second novel, Sea Chase, have been nominated for Red Cedar Awards. His most recent novel, Domenic’s War, has been nominated for a Silver Birch Award. Curtis Parkinson now lives in Ontario, where he lives with his wife and continues to write.