“Death in A Dacron Sail” is N.A. Granger's second Rhe Brewster mystery novel, set in the fictional coastal Maine town of Pequod; part Boothbay Harbor, part Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Brewster is an emergency room nurse and a new consultant to the Pequod Police Department where her brother-in-law, Sam Brewster, is the police chief. She and husband, Will, have a 10-year-old son, Jack, and another child on the way.

Will isn't too crazy about the upcoming addition or his wife's sleuthing.

Thank goodness Rhe's best friend of 10 years, Paulette, is a wealth of encouragement, a great listener and a most willing partner in crime. Since assisting Rhe with her first case (detailed in Granger's first book, “Death in a Red Canvas Chair”), Paulette became an avid reader of all things crime-related, from novels to investigation manuals.

Mysteries require the detective — and readers — to put the clues together, and this one starts with a doozy: a finger with pink nail polish is discovered in a lobster trap. A short time later, a body is discovered on a beach wrapped in what appears to be a sail; this victim turns out to be a child.

This death will be linked to several other unsolved child abduction cases that Rhe Brewster makes her mission to figure out, for the innocent victims and their families. Fortunately she has the medical background to attempt it. That background stems from her “creator,” Granger.

Granger holds a doctorate degree in anatomy as well as a bachelor’s degree in zoology. She is a professor emeritus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For 30 years Granger taught anatomy there to med students, EMTs and paramedics; and conducted bench research.

How did she deal with the difficult task of taking on child abduction and abuse for this second novel?

“The subject matter was hard when I started thinking about it. I think in a way, having taught anatomy for all those years, I can make the separation between a person and a body,” Granger explained. “It's the same separation med students have to make — and many of them have a hard time with it.

“There have been times when it was even difficult for me. But I did what I had to do (to write the book), which was separate myself from the horror of it.”

Granger never uses an outline; she just “can't work that way.”

“I usually have an idea about what the main highlights of the book will be,” Granger said. “I knew this one would be about child abduction. I wanted to make it personal, which is why I have someone close to Rhe kidnapped at the end, bringing it directly into Rhe's life.”

Granger loosely based Rhe's character traits on her best friend in high school.

“She was the devil-may-care, I'll take anything on anything kind of person,” Granger said. “Rhe is also a little like me in terms of how I'd like to be. Rhe is daring; she sees something she wants to know about and she goes and does it, which is one of the tension points in the book between Rhe and her husband.”

This well-woven mystery packs some surprises along the way to the frightening climax of the book at Crystal Bog — in February no less — taking readers to Swan Island, Camden, Ellsworth, Bass Harbor and Presque Isle.

The characters who live in the make-believe Maine town of Pequod are well developed and may well remind Maine readers of some folks they know. Granger interviewed quite extensively while conducting research for this book, talking to locals from Bath to East Boothbay to Caribou.

She visited Boothbay in February into the first week of March in 2014 to see what Maine was like weather-wise at that point in the year.

She traveled to Caribou to interview John Dennis, Elder of the Micmac tribe, visited Swan Island, and interviewed Nancy Sferra at the Nature Conservancy Maine field office to learn about Crystal Bog.

The Dacron sail on the cover of the book is a clue as to who the author interviewed in East Boothbay two summers ago.

That's right, Nat Wilson. After visiting Wilson's sail loft, the author based her sailmaker character, “Tim O'Neil,” on Wilson.

One of the lobstermen and sternman in the mystery is based on Clive Farrin of Boothbay Harbor and Cage Zipperer, who took Granger out on Farrin's lobster boat Sea Swallow one morning to educate her on the finer points of trapping lobsters. Granger found Farrin online looking for lobstermen in Boothbay Harbor.

“What a character he (Farrin) is — and his assistant! I watched them bait and haul traps,” Granger said.

Granger is no stranger to Boothbay Harbor; she and husband Gene have been visiting here for the past four or five summers.

This crime mystery is well woven by fully realized characters and a plot line that has almost as many twists and turns as the stitching on a Dacron sail.

Granger hopes “Death in a Dacron Sail” will attract people looking for “a mystery that's a little more than a mystery.”

“It's a story about friendships, relationships and pure evil. Readers will enjoy the setting, Pequod is part Boothbay, part Plymouth, Massachusetts .... I created a town where I would like to live. And I hope they enjoy visiting the place and the people who live there.”

Granger is currently finishing up her third book: “Death by Pumpkin.”

Death. By pumpkin. 

Yes indeed. The seeds for this Rhe Brewster installment were planted in Granger’s imagination after she watched a YouTube video of a pumpkin drop during Pumpkinfest in Damariscotta. Ghastly gourds.

For more on the author, visit her on Facebook; just search for “N.A. Granger - The Rhe Brewster Mysteries.”

Granger's books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.