The Virgin of Small Plains

Nancy Pickard's 2006 novel "The Virgin of Small Plains" threatens now and then to become a traditional murder mystery, a traditional romance or a traditional supernatural fantasy, but Pickard cleverly controls these impulses and instead gives us an original novel not so easy to place into any category.

Mitch Newquist and Abby Reynolds, the offspring of two the most prominent families in the small town of Small Plains, Kansas, are just teenagers in love when the story opens. Then Mitch witnesses something so shocking, so horrible that it forces, him into exile. What he sees involves the body of a dead girl and the actions of both Abby's father, a physician, and the sheriff, the father of their friend, Rex Shellberger. Hearing his story, show more Mitch's father, the judge, sends him away, telling him he must never return and never reveal what he witnessed.

Years later, following the death of his mother, Mitch, now a lawyer, does return. Rex has succeeded his father as county sheriff. Abby, in a dead-end affair with Rex's worthless brother, still pines for Mitch. The older generation remains steadfast, unwilling to talk about that dead girl or to tolerate any attempts to get at the truth of who she was or how she died.

Meanwhile, the dead girl has become something of a saint, her grave attracting pilgrims seeking healing. Many of them claim to have found it.

Pickard's twisty plot, a succession of surprises, comes down to generational battle, the young punished for the sins of their elders without understanding what those sins are or why they should suffer for them, their parents believing that some things, including that girl in the grave, should stay buried. The real miracle wrought by the Virgin of Small Plains is the power of truth revealed. show less

As part of my A Mystery for Every State project, I picked up [b:THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS|180648|The Virgin of Small Plains A Novel of Suspense|Nancy Pickard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172493157s/180648.jpg|1076272] by [a:Nancy Pickard|49538|Nancy Pickard|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. I must be the last mystery reader who hadn't already read this terrific book -- even my daughter, who normally reads only mysteries with knitting or vampires, raved about it -- and there's not much I can say that hasn't already been said. It definitely satisfied my standards for a great regional mystery -- besides fascinating characters and a plot full of surprises, there is a real feel for the setting, a small town show more in the Flint Hills region of Kansas. The weather descriptions are particularly good, and no one could say the weather isn't essential to the plot. If there is someone out there who hasn't read this book yet, don't wait. It's excellent. show less

Nancy Pickard's Jenny Cain mysteries entertained me straight through the 1980s. She lost me, though, in 1993, with The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders, her completion of a book left unfinished by Virginia Rich at the time of her death. Suddenly Pickard was no longer on my must-read list, even though I did add her Marie Lightfoot mysteries to my collection.

Then this year's Edgar and Agatha nominations came out, and perched on the "Best Novel" list was The Virgin of Small Plains. And a couple of Readerville regulars whose opinion I trust raved about the book and Pickard's departure from series characters. I decided to give it a try.

It was worth the read. The Virgin of Small Plains is fast-moving, populated with intriguing and show more believable characters, and depicts life in a small town that feels much like the Illinois town I grew up in, where everybody knew everybody. The story jumps between 1987, when a mystery went deliberately unsolved, to 2004, when a woman dies, a man returns to town, and terrible questions that have haunted the protagonists for 17 years begin to demand answers.

There are three protagonists: Abby Reynolds, the town doctor's daughter, Mitch Newquist, the judge's son, and Rex Shellenberger, the sheriff's son. Abby and Mitch are high school sweethearts. They are not only in love, but in lust as only high school kids in the throes of first love can be, every touch the most exquisite and unbearable caress and every thought seemingly in concert. On our first visit to 1987, we find Abby and Mitch cuddling in Abby's bed, debating whether this is the night to lose their virginity to one another. Mitch, being the good guy that he is, doesn't have a condom on him, and he ventures down to the doctor's office to find one. And in that short trip down the stairs begin all the problems.

The next thing Abby knows, Mitch is gone -- really gone, shipped out of town and away from her attempts to snag a boy above her station -- or so says his mother. Abby is shattered. Rex is shattered for another reason, for what he saw that night. And Mitch is shattered at his family's sudden, unexplained rejection.

In 2004, Mitch returns to Small Plains to visit his mother's grave, and suddenly everything begins to unravel. The tornado that greets him is the perfect metaphor for what happens to the town when he is spotted: everything is turned upside down, and danger is everywhere. Suddenly everyone's story about that night in 1987 starts to come out, and the inconsistent suppositions and conclusions reached by the three young friends and their parents are exposed for the sadly wrong explanations they are. And as the mysteries of 17 years before approach solutions, people start to die.

Pickard tells her story through the eyes of many of those who populate Small Plains, using each of the three friends and several other important characters as viewpoint characters in turn. It is a difficult technique, but Pickard accomplishes it. In addition, her likable characters remain likable even when they do misguided things, and her unlikable characters all have sparks in them that make them real rather than caricatures of bad guys.

This novel kept me guessing almost to the end, but that is because of the book's only real flaw: the ending comes out of nowhere, with the ultimate villain of the piece someone to whom no clues have pointed. But then, the point of this book does not seem to be the mystery itself. Rather, this is a character study of a small town in the Midwest, its mores, its relationships, its class barriers -- and, in the world of 2004, its survival in a world that is ever more urban, where children leave the moment they graduate from high school and build lives elsewhere. This books left me yearning for a small town atmosphere in which you see and converse with someone you know every day, and no one gets so close behind you on the subway platform that you think he's stealing your wallet. In this world, people visit the cemetery on Memorial Day because they still remember what that day means, and there's only a single pizza parlor. It is a world that may be dying in real life; but here, in Small Plains, it thrives. show less

The Virgin of Small Plains is the age-old story of the loss of innocence, the loss of trust, the loss of faith. Young Rex Shellenberger found the dead girl, and his friend Mitch Newquist disappeared the very next day-- stirring rumors that Mitch was the killer. Rex never believed those rumors, and neither did his friend (and Mitch's girlfriend) Abby Reynolds. None of the three friends ever recovered from that event, and as Nancy Pickard's tale unfolds, it soon becomes abundantly clear that their fathers-- as sheriff, judge and doctor three of the most powerful men in Small Plains-- know a lot more about that night than they've ever told anyone. Abby Reynolds becomes the catalyst. For seventeen years, she's felt "like a triangle with one show more side missing," and she's tired of it. She wants answers, she wants closure, and she wants a name and justice for the Virgin of Small Plains. Little does she know that she's about to take a stick to a very large hornet's nest.

What makes this book so good is Pickard's lyrical writing style and her eye for the telling detail. She's created a bit of a romance and a bit of a gothic tale, but it works. Her use of weather to create atmosphere and suspense is top notch, and her characters made themselves at home in my head. I grew up in a small farm town, and I could easily see the events of this book happening there. The only thing that prevents me from giving Pickard's book an all-out rave review is the fact that I put the pieces together very early. But the poetic writing, the setting, and the characters-- including a grey conure named J.D.-- packed such a punch that I really didn't mind the lack of surprise. I have another book by Pickard, The Scent of Rain and Lightning, sitting on my shelf, and I look forward to reading it. show less

In January of 1987 during a severe blizzard the town sheriff, Nathan Shellenberger, and his two teen sons, Patrick and Rex, found the nude body of a young woman nearly buried in a snowdrift in the rural town of Small Plains, Kansas. Nathan and his boys place the body in their truck so that Nathan can bring the girl to his friend, the town doctor, Quentin Reynolds. As Nathan and Quentin deal with the body they are unaware that Abby Reynolds, Quentin's 16-year-old daughter, had allowed her boyfriend Mitch Newquist spend the night with her and Mitch was now trapped inside the doctor's storage room watching two of the town's most respected men do an unthinkable thing to the girl's body. When Mitch was able to sneak out of the house he ran show more to his parents to tell them what had happened. His father, Tom Newquist, a judge and close friends with Nathan and Quentin, sent his son to bed with assurances that he would handle everything. Before dawn the next morning Mitch is awakened by his parents who are packing Mitch's clothing and belongings telling him that they are sneaking him out of town because they believe the powerful Nathan and Quentin will blame Mitch for the murder. Mitch would be gone for 17 years.

In 2004 Abby has moved on with her life although she never understood why Mitch disappeared after leaving her house that night long ago and never hearing from him. Rex is now the sheriff since his father's retirement and Abby's best friend. The young woman who had been murdered was never claimed by family so the town pooled their resources to bury the unnamed woman in the town cemetery. Over the years she has become a folk legend in the area as people claim that the beautiful 'Virgin' had performed miracles by healing people's illnesses and helping with various problems. The circumstances of the girl's death had never set easy with Mitch and he finally decided to return to town to confront the men he had spied on 17 years before. There are those in Small Plains who will do anything to keep anyone from learning the truth and Mitch's presence in town has caused many buried secrets to rise too close to the surface.

I really enjoyed this novel and it is the first I have read by this author though I will certainly seek out more. The story jumped around quite a bit from 1986, 1987 and 2004 but it was always clearly noted and easy to follow. The final reveal was extremely complex and although I had figured out a few of the pieces I definitely was surprised by the ending. It was a good one! show less

This is one of those fucking books in that new-ish fucking style what attempts to, I don't fucking know, take a goddamn murder mystery and make it EXCITING and FAST-PACED by totally screwing with the narrative linechanging p-o-v rapidly and skipping back-and-forth in time. And pretending to give you clues about whodunit that turn out to be not clues at all, haha, and weren't you a fool for thinking the psychopathic son did it?
That's got nothing to do with being a foolish, naive reader, goddammit! That's a lack of character development caused by BAD WRITING.

It pains me to say this, it really does. I'm a big fan of Pickard's Jenny Cain series (it's lovely and sensitive and well-written and realistic - considering the genre), but this show more book just plain sucked. No clues, no characters, no mystery, not much murder, and at the end it felt like nothing at all was solved. By then, sadly, I didn't much care.

(1/15) show less

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard was a Christmas gift (yeah I know) that I finally got around to reading—my glossy magazine habit has seriously eaten into my literature time—and absolutely loved it. It’s a mystery that takes place present-day in a small town in Kansas. It has a lot of elements I love: an old, unexplained murder; well-drawn cast of small-town characters; romance; suspense; weather-related disasters (two!); generational sins-of-the-fathers-type secrets; an elegantly drawn, utterly engrossing atmosphere.

In a nutshell, here’s the story: the bloody body of an unidentified young woman is found in the snow during a blizzard 17 years before the novel’s events take place. The small town rallied and buried show more her, but her death marked the beginning of a web of secrets and lies that quietly ripped apart three of the town’s most prominent families. The years pass, and a legend grows around the woman’s grave. Visitors and townspeople claim “the virgin” can heal and provide miracles to those who visit her. With the return of Mitch Newquist, who left town mysteriously the night the girl died and hasn’t been seen since, main character Abby begins investigating what exactly happed so long ago on a night that ruined her hopes and dreams for the future.

The atmosphere and the people reminded me a bit of Margaret Maron’s mysteries. You feel like you know everyone by the end of the book and the small-town values and mores are both a blessing and a curse for the residents living there. The story’s suspense will keep you turning pages and guessing as Pickard reveals what really happened bit by bit. There are a couple of sideline plots that seem extraneous at times, placed there to up the danger. Usually, I’m all for adding danger to a mystery, particularly in the final scenes, but these felt out of place.

All the same, I couldn’t put the book down and finished it in just a few days. It’s solid and it’s memorable and completely entertaining. show less