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Intriguing!, April 28, 2011
By Heather
Life is a precarious balancing act, and Whitney Award winning author, G. G. Vandagriff understands that on more than one level—both in her own life and in her prolific writing. Vandagriff is the author of a variety of books, including the non-fiction work Deliverance from Depression, the women’s novel, Pieces of Paris, which deals with a woman who must overcome PTSD to save her marriage, the wild and humorous Alex & Briggie mystery series, and an epic pre-WWI historical novel, The Last Waltz. In Vandagriff’s recent novel, Foggy With a Chance of Murder, Chloe Green exists just above layers of grief, despite her talent and success as a best-selling novelist. She writes formula mystery novels to numb her mind, just as her mother drinks to forget her husband’s death. The only thing that is keeping Chloe’s mother semi-functional is Chloe’s successful career as an author. Fed up with her mother’s continually tipsy guests, Chloe escapes to walk the beach. There she meets a man—in the worst of circumstances. Rob Stevens is frantically searching for his young son who’s gone missing. When the young boy drowns in the ocean right before her eyes, Chloe spirals back into a void of self-doubt. Despite her sympathy for other’s losses, she knows that she needs to make a serious change in a world she’s allowed to fill with hopelessness. Watching Rob’s grief reminds Chloe of her own tragedies, including her father’s death, and a heart-breaking romance she thought was over forever. As a result of the young boy’s drowning, a cast of characters enters Chloe’s life, and before she realizes it, she is starting to change. Despite the fact that Chloe’s soul is expanding toward new possibilities, mystery and danger is around every corner as she grows closer to Rob and the volatile circumstances that seem to surround him. Then, an important part of her past returns and Chloe finds herself in the middle of more than one life-threatening situation. Foggy With a Chance of Murder may be shelved with the other garden-variety suspense novels, but Foggy is so much more than the average offering. Vandagriff gives us glimpses into human nature that just aren’t found in the boilerplate mysteries, delving deep into characterization and stacking up the odds in a plot rich with complication and intrigue.

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