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Death in Kingsport    by Curtis Parkinson Amazon.com order for
Death in Kingsport
by Curtis Parkinson
Order:  USA  Can
Tundra, 2007 (2007)
Softcover
* *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Fourteen-year-old Neil Graves lives in small town Kingsport, on the shores of Lake Ontario. It's 1941, just after the end of the Great Depression, and his favorite uncle Chester has died suddenly, supposedly of a heart attack. Just before the cremation begins, Neil hears an odd knocking from his uncle's casket and worries that Chester had revived before being burnt to ashes. But his mother tells him it's just his imagination. And his friend Graham, whose 'answer to any problem was an equation', offers to look up the coefficent of expansion for mahogany, assuming the heating of the wood caused the noise that Neil heard.

Later, hanging out in an old, neglected stable, Neil hears a sepulchral voice telling him of another unusual death in town, that of Michael Trimble, and decides to investigate, with Graham's help. He also meets a beautiful girl, Crescent, who's on her own quest. They wonder about Doc Savage who was both mens' physician, and learn that his brother Robert was imprisoned for tax evasion. They visit Michael's schoolteacher sister, Miss Trimble, and discover that her brother accompanied the good doctor on an expedition to the Amazon rain forest 'to learn about medicinal plants from the shamans.' Coincidentally, so did Uncle Chester. Then there's yet another death.

With Crescent's and Graham's help, Neil investigates this spate of odd deaths, uncovers one surprise after another, and almost meets his uncle's fate himself. Along the way, he finds out the identity of the person behind the voice in the stable and foils a crazed scientist's ruthless plans.

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