Gus looked up from the grill when I walked in and growled, “Get out. In back was a dining room with the best view of Busman’s Harbor anywhere. Inside, you climbed down a long set of stairs into the main room where you found a candlepin-bowling lane on your left and a lunch counter on your right. Gus’s restaurant had an old gas pump with a round top out front, like something out of an Edward Hopper painting. Check out this scene in which we’re introduced to my very favorite Busman’s Harbor resident, Gus: For example, I really admire how Ross uses setting to establish character. Other methods are more subtle and complex. Not only is this description funny and succinct, it’s remarkably effective you walk away from it with a vivid picture of Sonny’s appearance and knowing exactly what kind of a person he is. Sonny even had the flaming orange hair and barrel chest to go along with his deep suspicion of anything new or different. When Paul Simon sang that orangutans were skeptical about changes in their environments, he'd described my brother-in-law perfectly. Some are simple, like this metaphor, which succeeds on almost too many levels to count: How does she accomplish this? With a variety of techniques actually. To a person, the cast members who populate Ross’ fictional town of Busman’s Harbor read like they stepped straight off the coast and onto the page. If I had to pick just one way to characterize it, though, it would be this: Clammed Up by Barbara Ross is a master class in character development. And it contains what look to be some truly killer recipes for a number of New England culinary classics (lobster mac and cheese, anyone?). It’s a book that perfectly captures the sights, sounds, and feel of small-town Maine. It’s a brilliantly set up and cleverly executed mystery. Readers can visit her website.Clammed Up by Barbara Ross is the debut of a new cozy mystery series set in coastal Maine, featuring struggling family-businessowner Julie Snowden, a killer at a wedding party, and traditional seafood and clambake recipes (available September 3, 2013).Ĭlammed Up by Barbara Ross has a lot going for it.

Barbara and her husband live in Portland, Maine. Barbara’s Maine Clambake novellas are included along with stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in three holiday anthologies from Kensington Publishing. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Barbara Ross | 20 Questions: MUDDLED THROUGHġ-What is the title of your latest release?īarbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries and the Jane Darrowfield Mysteries.

Clammed up by barbara ross