In Jessica Grant’s hilarious novel Come, Thou Tortoise (Knopf), Audrey Flowers, who was raised by her father and her uncle in an unorthodox household, returns to Newfoundland to be with her father, who has hit his head and fallen into a coma. There she encounters several mysteries that require her to fall back on her extensive experience playing the board game Clue.
She leaves behind (in Oregon) her pet tortoise, Winnifred, who narrates her own part of the story, and in Newfoundland she meets a young man with twinkly eyes who makes Christmas lights and sells them in the Canadian Tire parking lot.
The solution to the biggest mystery is revealed slowly as Audrey starts asking questions about her father and her uncle—questions that never occurred to her when they were a happy little family—and the narration moves seamlessly between past and present as we laugh our way through Audrey’s odd upbringing.
When the story’s done and the mysteries are solved, we get to reread the story and spot the clues that Audrey missed as she grew into womanhood.
