Mardi Link's new true crime thriller Isadore's Secret will be out this week or next, and I've recently finished reading the advance copy. I admit I was captivated right to the end, wanting not only to know if the murderer would be found, but what motive might ultimately be proved, how the tiny Leelanau town of Isadore would recover, and what might become of the several Catholic priests implicated as knowledgeable about the sordid mess. Link, who previously wrote about the murder of the Robison family near Good Hart in 1968, did not let me down. By the book's end I was shaking my head at the unlikely conclusion to the long unsolved crime. My hope now is that others will read the book too and Link will earn some measure of success on her new project. I had never before heard of Isadore, let alone the murder and burial of a pregnant nun under the tiny burg's only church. Link has used her source material well, culling from archives as wide as The New York Times, and as close as the Traverse City Record Eagle. More importantly, she has recreated believably the sleepy hamlet of 1907 and after where the crime occurred.
Smart readers will find this book informative, well written, and disturbing. All good responses to good writing.
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